Like Ships in the Night
by lespetitesmorts
Summary: AU in which Jane is a demon hunter and Maura is a regular human being. Until their worlds collide, that is.
1. Day One

NANOWRIMO 2013

A Rizzoli & Isles and Shadowhunter Cross-Over

**DISCLAIMER/PREFACE/INTRO**

I have never and will never own the rights to either Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter (Mortal Instruments/Infernal Devices) universe, nor Tess Gerrittsen's and Janet Tamaro's Rizzoli & Isles universe. However, I will be borrowing both of the above for the purposes of this exploratory work of fiction.

This has been a thought baby of mine for quite some time now, but I decided to hold off and simply plan this out in preparation for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This means that this story will be at least 50,000 words in length by the end of November. It also means that for now, the quality may be very shoddy as this endeavour, at first, is simply about quantity and not quality. Quite honestly, this will be a posted first draft, something which doesn't usually occur (for good reason). If I'm not sick of this novel by December, then perhaps I'll even edit it for you all (once I've caught up on sleep and suffered through my annual caffeine withdrawal).

Each new 'chapter' probably won't end up being an actual chapter. I'll just be uploading whatever I managed to write that day. This means I may stop in the middle of a chapter or plot point. But don't worry, it'll be rectified the next day. Instead, please pay due notice to my chapter markings within the writing itself.

The journey starts November 1st, my friends, and I would love to have you on the ride with me as I navigate the murky waters of a novel written in a single month. If you choose to stay, and even if you're just passing through, please be kind to my darling story and tender self-esteem.

Also, I haven't freshly re-read these books, so if I get anything wrong about Shadowhunter lore, please feel free to inform me. You know, preferably in a kind fashion.

Thank you.

**SPIRITUALLY UPLIFTING BEGINNING QUOTE FROM NOTED SOURCE**

My God, this is NaNo, do you think I have time to research some barely relevant jumble of words merely to conform to an often ignored precedent standard?

- Me.

**PROLOGUE**

The night was damp and lacking in stars. Using only the faint glimmer of the moon coming in through the dense grove of trees, she approached the abandoned cabin with caution. It was rundown and looked like a chaotic mess; so it was just the type of place he'd pick to hide out in for a while.

Using every scrap of training she'd be given, she stalked through the brush to the house.

A few hundred yards from the house, she located a car covered in a camouflage tarp and driven into a thick tangle of branches and leaves. The hood was slightly warm to the touch, even with the plastic covering, and that only cemented her theory: he was here.

She felt a trickle of anticipatory dread slide down her spine. This would be the night of her revenge, and she would stop at nothing to achieve her ends. She drew her twin blades from the scabbards strapped across her back and whispered their names to the lonely wind.

Her breathing regulated as she brought forth every ounce of her discipline, and then she sprang forward lightly, body tensed to face her past, her present, and her future.

**CHAPTER ONE**

There were four of them parading down the sidewalk as if they owned the city. A curly-, dark-haired young woman led the group, followed closely by three boys. Although there were a multitude of people on the street, regardless of the hour, no one paid them any notice; despite the frivolous attitude they were displaying toward the many sleeping city residents.

Their recent victory was fresh in their minds, as was the adrenaline still pounding through their veins. The boys' hoots and hollers were a stark contrast to the merely satisfied lip curl gracing the face of their relentless leader.

Dressed in black from head to toe, it would be easy to assume that they were merely rambunctious troublemakers out searching for a place to be. Upon closer inspection, the hilts glittering at their backs or their waists soon tossed that notion up in smoke. Their sleeveless vests revealed lean and muscular tanned arms, covered in swirling patterns of black or red ink. Any movement made by any of the gang was lithe, purposeful, and stealthy, like that of a blessed predator.

And predators they were. Blood and ichor, though hardly noticeable against the colourless vestments they wore, were mainly splattered across the lower sections of their pant legs and shoes. These were fine young Shadowhunters, members of an elite race descended from both humans and angels. Fierce and devoted, these warriors spent their entire lives fighting demons and upholding the Accords (a smattering of agreements decided upon between the Shadowhunters – on behalf of humanity – and the Downworlders – the vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and faeries), which basically say that any Downworlder who attacks a human is fair game to be 'taken care of' by any/all Shadowhunters with evidence or who have witnessed it.

One of the boys grew quiet, pensive in the darkness, and the other two noticed.

"Oh, come on, Frankie!" Frost teased, slapping the younger man across the back. "Jane may be a sour puss, but that doesn't mean you have to be one, too."

Frankie managed to get in an eye-roll before the other Shadowhunter started in on him as well. "Take it from someone who knows, Frankie," Giovanni began, no doubt about to bless Frankie with a portion of his infinite wisdom.

"Okay guys, lay off of him," Jane instructed, swatting both Gio and Frost on the backs of their heads. Rubbing the spots with mock pain, the two faded to the back of the quartet, bending their heads together to chat as only non-parabatai could do.

"You didn't have to do that, Janie, they were just playing," Frankie huffed in annoyance.

"You're my little brother, Frankie, and don't call me 'Janie'," Jane said, knocking his shoulder in the silent sibling way that's code for 'It's okay, just let it go'.

She stopped suddenly, in the middle of the alleyway, and Frost and Giovanni almost crashed into her. Frankie stood rigid at her side, listening intently. With practiced ease, they drew their weapons and fell into a formation. Craning her neck and stepping softly, Jane led them down another alley until they were brought to a dead stop at an alcove.

A dirty-blonde man and a redheaded woman were pressed close against each other against the dirty brick side of the building, the woman's hand holding the man's tightly above his head. His eyes were shut tight, and his mouth was gaping open, but all of her attention seemed to be devoted to his neck, where his muscles were tensed and his pulse beating rapidly.

To anyone else, it would merely seem as if a couple had gotten carried away out of the public eye with their necking, but the Shadowhunters knew differently. They attacked at once, pulling the vampire off of the poor guy and neatly disposing of the rampant Downworlder in a few pretty slashes of their seraph blades.

Giovanni took care of the victim and sent him on his way before regrouping with the others.

"Everyone alright?" Jane asked, scanning her friends. They nodded. "Good," she stated, and promptly fell over.

"What the hell!" Frankie swore as the three of them dropped to the asphalt and quickly ran their eyes and hands over every curve of her body.

"Shit," Frost muttered, his hands over the gaping wound in Jane's stomach. "It's been bleeding since we took out that trio of Ravener demons, because there is no way this wound came from that vamp." He felt around the edges as he pulled the wound closed. "Definitely a Ravener. Came from the barbed tail. Be thankful it didn't bite her. At least we have a chance of saving her if we can get her back to the Institute in time."

"Dude, we're at least a mile away," Giovanni said, running a hand through his light brown hair. Frost turned and leveled a look so cold in his direction, one could practically see the icicles.

"I am not going to let my parabatai die, G, and Frankie's sure as hell not going to let his sister die. Quickly, let's move!"

With Giovanni supporting her long legs, and Frankie cradling the upper half of her body, Frost was left to plug the wound as they quickly wound their way through the semi-deserted streets of Boston. Due to their glamours, an illusion which made them invisible to any mundane human's eyes, no one paid them any heed.

No one, that is, until a blonde with wavy locks rushed towards them, asking hurriedly, "Oh my goodness, are you alright, what's wrong with her?"

Frankie and Giovanni froze, too taken aback by the fact that someone could see them. Luckily Frost came to the rescue. "My friend was stabbed in an alley and I need to get her to her house, if you'll excuse us." He started to force the other boys to move again when a hand gripped his wrist.

"Wait, my apartment is just across the street. I'm a doctor, I can help her," she offered, voice desperate. "Please."

Frost glanced down at Jane, her usually tanned skin was sickeningly pale. He felt bile rise up in the back of his throat. He looked the stranger in the eye and after a moment, he nodded.

"Come on!" He barked at the other two, and together they followed the woman across the street and to the second floor.

"Set her on the kitchen table," she instructed as she disappeared down a hallway. They tried to be as gentle as possible, and Frankie's hand never left the side of his sister's face.

Darting back into the room with a massive first aid kit, the med student began working to cleanse the wound. Deciding that the unconscious woman wouldn't notice it either way, she skipped the step of numbing the area before grabbing the sutures and slowly, meticulously stitching her back up.

"There doesn't appear to be any damage to any of the major organs, but there was a lot of blood loss. Optimally I'd want her on an IV to replace all of those fluids, but I'm afraid I don't have one here." She rifled through her kit again and extracted a couple of packets. "These will help with the pain and discomfort once she wakes."

She looked at them all curiously, taking in their daunting, warrior-like appearances. "I would suggest you take her to the hospital, but I would theorise that you'd graciously ignore my request."

Frost nodded. "You'd be correct."

She lilted her head to the side, thoughtful. "Tell me."

The three boys traded unsure looks. "Tell you what?" Giovanni attempted to deflect.

"Tell me about why you're armed in the city of Boston, why you're covered in tattoos, why you won't take this woman to a hospital although it could only do her well, and why for the love of God, does this wound not look like anything I've ever seen before?" The woman demanded, setting her facial features into a no-nonsense look of determination.

Frost huffed, but admittedly he'd have to tell her something. And she could _see_ them, which meant that maybe she wasn't entirely human herself. If he was smart, he'd convince the girl to come to the Institute with them and from there be able to further solve the mystery. He gestured for her to take a seat, and reluctantly she complied. In mere moments, the three boys were on her couch, and the woman was perched on the edge of the armchair, her back facing Jane.

He held out his hand. "Barry Frost, short for Barold, though everyone calls me Frost." He nodded to the other two in turn. "Frankie Rizzoli, Giovanni Gilberti." Waving an arm in Jane's direction, he said, "And last, but not least, Jane Rizzoli. And you are?"

She paused for only a brief moment before gripping his hand quickly but firmly with her own. "Maura Isles."

"Pleasure to meet you, Maura Isles. And what species are you?" Giovanni asked, putting forth his best behaviour. Frankie elbowed him in the ribs. 'What?' Giovanni mouthed and Frankie just shook his head in resignation.

"Don't mind him!" Frost cut in at Maura's blank look. "He… was drinking earlier, doesn't know what he's sayi-"

"Are you not human?" Maura asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"We're mostly human," a groggy, husky voice answered from behind her.

Everyone turned to stare at the brunette who was carefully hopping down from the counter. She thought better of moving around, however, and opted to simply lean against the island for support.

"How does that even work?" Maura asked, eyeing the patient carefully.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Way back in the day, the founder of our race asked an angel to-"

"Angels don't exist!" Maura shrieked, interrupting heatedly. Once Jane leveled a glare in her direction she shrugged, but kept her head held high, firm on her opinion.

"-mix his blood with the blood of humans in a cup, so that he could make a legendary race of warriors to uphold the Law. His name was Jonathan Shawdowhunter, and as such, we're named after him," Jane explained, pulling a small dagger from her belt and using the blade as a makeshift mirror. She pushed a stray bundle of hair back behind her ear.

"You must be nuts," Maura muttered, rising fluidly from her seat. She walked right up to Jane and yanked her shirt up a bit, completely ignoring Jane's protests. "You'll live," she concluded, after examining how the sutures were working when Jane was vertical.

"Thanks very much, Doc, but now we'd better be going." Jane made her way past the doctor only to be stopped by a soft hand on her wrist.

"Go where?" Maura inquired. "You should be going to a hospital, really, to ensure you don't have any other ailments."

Jane scoffed. "Ailment? Lady, this is nothing but a mere flesh wound in my line of work. So yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to stitch me up, but really, I'm fine and would like to go home."

"Jane…" Frost said imploringly, trying to convey his thoughts about taking her with them in the silence. The leader looked away from the blonde and subtly winked at him.

"Is there anyone there who can see to it that you receive proper attention?" Maura continued, relentless.

"No, alright, I'll get one of these numbskulls to give me an iratze once we're there and then most of the wound will be taken care of," Jane turned to go again.

"What's an iratze?"

Jane sighed heavily. "It's a rune and it heals Shadowhunters." She paused. "What did you say your name was?"

"Maura," the blonde woman said, and then darted into the back room once more, this time returning with a small suitcase. She picked up her medical kit on her way past. "And I'm coming with you."

Frost almost couldn't handle Rizzoli's signature smirk. He simply pulled himself off of the couch, forcing the other two to do the same.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Jane said, laying it on rather thickly with the indecisive tone.

"If you don't have any medical professionals, I must insist. I'm on a sabbatical from my work at the moment, but that doesn't mean my skills can't be of use elsewhere. Perhaps you can teach me about these mystical angels and iratzes," Maura pondered, wandering out the front door. She stopped in the hall when she realised no one was following her. "Are you all coming?"

Jane had to smile and admire the girl's attitude. If she wanted something, she got it. With an indulgent shake of her head and a minor shrug, she led the rest of the Shadowhunters after the doctor.

When they exited the stairwell to the street, Maura abruptly turned and stared at Jane expectantly. Fighting a grin, the Shadowhunter simply raised an eyebrow and asked, "What? I thought you were leading the way, oh all-knowing one."

"Jane, cut it out," Frankie slapped her on the back. He pointed to the left. "It's that way. Just follow us, Maura," he smiled.

"Looks like Rizzoli Jr.'s got a crush, eh, Gi?" Frost muttered to Giovanni. They slapped five and swapped smug smirks.

Maura pushed ahead to join Jane at the front of the group, while Frankie was practically dragged backward to be included in the friendly boys' club teasing and ribbing.

"So, tell me more," Maura half-asked, half-demanded. Jane cast a sidelong glance at her.

"What do you want to know?"

Hopeful that such a response was a good omen, Maura smiled a little and said, "Anything. About you, about Shadowhunters, where we're going, how you were injured… anything."

They walked in silence for a few moments before Jane found the right words to respond. "We're going to the Institute. It looks like a ruin, or it should. I don't know what it'll look like to you, because frankly, I'm not sure what you are, but it's where we live."

"How many of them are you?" Maura asked as Jane took a sudden right down a suspicious looking alley.

"Well, let's see, there's the four of us, Cavanaugh, Korsak, and my mother. But we take care of the city, the four of us mainly. The mundanes are safe with us around, generally speaking. Boston isn't exactly a hub of demonic movement. There's the occasional lost demon, but mostly it's rampant Downworlders." Jane looked over at her companion. "And I've completely lost you, haven't I?"

Maura nodded sheepishly.

Jane shrugged. "I suppose I should focus most on the things that in some way include you. For starters, out in the world, most Shadowhunters adopt glamours, or illusions so that the regular folks don`t get creeped out by our appearances. You can see us as we are, which means that you have the Sight."

The group moved through a densely populated part of Boston Common. "The Sight is just the term we have for whatever allows people to see the more… supernatural side of life." Jane explained, tucking her hands in her pockets.

"So, there's more to it than just you guys? These Downworlders? And did I hear you say 'demonic movement' earlier?" Maura stopped suddenly in the wet grass, her arm darting out to catch a hold of Jane's.

"It's a long story, if you want the entire thing." Jane tugged and they resumed their walk.

"Well, I'm hanging around at least until I know you're fully healed. Size of that wound, I figure we have plenty of time." Maura chuckled, feeling strangle at ease with these strangers.

"I told you, Doc, an iratze or two back at the Insitute, and then I give this wound a day or two tops to heal up," Jane assured her, taking a sudden left through a narrow gap in a hedge.

Maura followed her through, and let out a gasp. A grand old church was there, hidden by all the greenery. The spires seemed to touch the sky, and the stained glass windows were amongst the finest Maura had ever encountered, and she'd done a lot of traveling in Europe. It appeared older than it should've been, more majestic than anything one could dream of Boston offering up.

Jane marched up to the iron gate and held it open while the group filed through, Maura coming in last as she gazed upon the architectural masterpiece, for lack of a better term. Jane gave her a light push in her back to get her back up to moving at a regular pace and then they entered the building itself, Giovanni holding the door open and following them inside.

The inside was just as aesthetically pleasing as the exterior had been, but Maura wasn't granted a whole lot of time to inspect the crown mouldings before harried footsteps thundered down the great spiral staircase.

"WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU LOT BEEN? YOU WERE ONLY TAKING CARE OF A RAVENER DEMON? WHO'S HURT?!"

Jane nudged Maura and leaned over, "That would be my mother," she whispered.


	2. Day Two

"Francesco Rizzoli Junior, what the bloody hell-" she stopped short at the sight of five people in the doorway instead of four. "And who is this?"

The Rizzoli children traded a look, silently arguing about who would be introducing their Sight-ridden new acquaintance.

Maura saved them both the trouble by stepping forward lightly and holding out a hand to the matriarch. "Doctor Maura Isles, Mrs. Rizzoli, at your service," she introduced herself, smiling softly.

"Angela, please," she insisted, returning the handshake. Turning to her children, she mouthed the word, "Doctor?"

Jane nodded and shrugged. "Long story."

Despite looking a little disgruntled, Angela allowed this explanation to suffice for the moment. "Well, I'm sure you've all worked up an appetite, so come in, let's eat, and you can tell me all about it." She shooed them through the large glass doors to the right of the grand winding staircase. "Frankie, go set another place for our guest, will you?

"Yeah, Ma," he answered and wandered off to find another plate and some cutlery.

"Sean!" Angela hollered, "Kids are back, time to eat!" And then, almost as an after thought, "They brought a friend back with them!"

"Coming, Ange," came the response from somewhere else in the grand church.

When he entered, it was easy to see that the two of them were together. Sean Cavanaugh was a slightly portly, but well groomed man, and his salt and pepper hair contrasted nicely with Angela's long dark blonde hair. It was difficult to see at first, the relation between Mrs. Rizzoli and her two kids, but if you looked closely enough about the facial features, Maura could just make out similarities usually defined by blood relatives.

"Hey, Ma, where's Korsak?" Jane asked as her brother finished setting Maura's place.

"He's up there surrounded by his books. Said he probably wouldn't be joining us tonight, although I'm certain he'll hate having missed Maura's presence." Angela replied. "Now everybody sit, I made lasagna, cannoli, eggplant parmesan, and some other things. Dig in, guys."

Maura sat next to Jane, and simply watched in amazement as the group attacked the food in a chaotic fashion, calling for things to be passed, and the older adults asking the warriors about their eventful evening.

Jane's elbow hit her in her ribs. "If you want any chance of getting some food, I'd get in there before Frost and Giovanni eat it all." Maura smiled her thanks, which Jane shrugged off, and joined the fray, albeit much more conserved than her dining associates.

"So?" Angela asked, directing the question toward her daughter.

Jane swallowed her mouthful of lasagna and hastily explained, "I got scratched by the Ravener, and then we rescued this mundane from a vamp, but then I'm fairly certain I passed out. I can only assume that the guys encountered Maura on the street, and she could see us which only served to pique our curiousity. I woke up in her apartment after she'd apparently patched me up and she insisted that since we had no medical professionals here, she should accompany us while she's on a sabbatical from her real job." She quickly inhaled another bite and looked between Frankie and Maura. "I think that covers it, yeah?"

The other two nodded, but all three were staring at Angela, who had failed to resume eating. "You passed out from an injury and you didn't think that was important enough to LEAD WITH?"

"Hey, hey, Ma, I'm fine. It was just a scratch, and the Doc here sewed me up pretty nicely. A couple of iratzes and I'll be fine in a day or two. Not a problem, nothing worth getting worked up over." Jane defended before following her brother's lead and shutting up and shoveling food into her mouth.

"I'll inspect your wound again later. And then you really must explain what these 'iratzes' are and why you seem to believe they'll accelerate your healing to unprecedented degrees," Maura contributed softly.

Jane smirked smugly as Angela focused her attention on the new addition.

The remainder of the meal was spent listening to Angela and Maura discuss various aspects of the doctor's life, heavily interspersed with Angela's "You're too skinny, dear, eat more" comments.

"Jane, why don't you show Maura up to the guest room beside yours, an make sure she has everything she needs while she's here," Angela instructed, and then with her eyes she communicated to her daughter the fact that they would be having a discussion as soon as that was complete.

"Sure, Ma," Jane replied, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "This way, Maura," Jane offered, getting up from the table.

"Oh, shouldn't I take my plate someplace?"

Jane chuckled. "Nah, Frankie'll take care of it. He and Giovanni are on dish duty tonight." And she hauled the doctor away before anything else could happen.

They went through a mini-tour of the building, Jane pointing out any things she ought to know, such as to stay away from the boys rooms, and the locations of the bathrooms.

"Well, have a good night," Jane muttered as she opened the door to Maura's room.

"Oh, no, wait please. Come in, let me take a look at your sutures, at least."

Jane just yanked her shirt up in the hallway to show her stitches. "They're fine, and by tomorrow or the day after, it'll be completely fine. No worries, Doc." And then she gave a short wave over her shoulder as she meandered down the hall, tugging her shirt back over the wound.

Maura stared after her until she vanished from sight, and then she turned in for the night with a quiet sigh.

Jane paced a couple of lengths outside of the office before finally gathering the courage to go in. She was dead-sure that her mother would have several earfuls for her.

"Alright, young lady, out with the whole story about this Maura person. What is she?" Sean asked, much to Jane's surprise. Her mother was being uncharacteristically quiet in a corner, which most likely, would only lead to a future explosion sometime very soon. Jane swallowed loudly.

"As far as I can tell, she's a mundane. She has no Downworlder marks, hasn't even heard of our side of life. She just has the Sight, as rare as that is." Jane theorized, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

"Does she know yet?" Sean asked, leaning against a large oak desk.

Jane flicked her eyes over to her mother. "No. I haven't told her everything. And I haven't made the offer. You know what happens when the offer is made. It isn't fair to her to even broach that topic before she's had a taste."

"You know that isn't your decision to make?" Sean stared at her until she nodded.

"She deserves a chance. Come on, you know as well as I do that everyone who gets the offer, takes it before they know what exactly they're getting into because it's something new, it's exciting. And then they get into it with us and they see the despair and the suffering and they want out, but they can't get out because of that goddamn oath, Sean." Jane shook her head distastefully. "We're supposed to be better than that, especially to anyone who would willingly be able to choose to stay with us, be our friends."

"I don't disagree with you, Jane, but you know that we are under orders from the Clave, and this particular rule has been a part of our heritage since before any of us were born. It's not something that will change overnight." Sean sighed, "I don't, however, see anything the matter with waiting a little while until we give her the choice. After all, there has been an influx of mysterious happenings around here which we haven't been able to solve. I should think that even the Clave would be in agreement that particular dispersion of priorities."

Sean winked at Jane. "Now, I'm pretty sure your mother wishes to tear you a new one for both getting injured and being late, so I'll just leave you two ladies to it," he said, and took his leave of the room.

Jane winced in preparation.

"You know, everyone seems to be under the impression that you're about to get your ass kicked for things that are not within your control. Do I really come across like that?" Angela pondered aloud rhetorically. "Look, you're a brilliant fighter, Jane, so I know it's not as though you were simply being lazy and got hurt. But when you get hurt it just makes me so upset that you can't see it as being a problem. If all of my children got hurt as much as you did, they'd probably have to commit me to a psych ward simply because I'd be a worrying, fretful mess every time any of you left the house."

Angela sat down heavily behind the desk in the plush leather desk chair.

"Just, take better care of yourself, Janie. You're the only daughter I have, the first child, you have a special place in my heart. Please don't make me join the many ranks of parents who have lost their children prematurely. You're not invincible. And if you need someone's help, just ask for it. No one will think any less of you. We're Shadowhunters, Janie, we band together and we are here for one another, no matter what." Angela paused to gather her breath. "Just – try to remember that you mean something to all of us, okay? Please stop all the recklessness and masochistic, martyr-like tendencies."

Jane opened her mouth to retort, but found she had nothing to say. She simply took Angela's hand wave of dismissal to heart and exited the office, heading straight to her own room.


	3. Days Three & Four

**CHAPTER TWO**

One self-administered iratze, and almost twelve hours later, Jane is in Maura's room, fully enjoying the look of utter disbelief on the blonde's face.

"But I don't understand how that's even possible!" She ran her fingers over the tender, but mostly healed skin.

"Shadowhunter," Jane explained, smugly pointing to herself. Rolling her eyes at Maura's expression of pure incredulity, she dragged the both of them to sit on the edge of the bed and took out a wand-like implement.

"What's that?" Maura asked, eyeing the object warily. Jane offered it to her, and carefully she took it. She twirled it around in her hand, scrutinising it.

"It's called a stele. It's what gave me the runes, or the tattoos as you imprecisely call them," she gestured at her body, toward the interwoven webs of black scattered across her skin.

"Show me?" Maura held the stele back to Jane.

The brunette grasped it skilfully between the fingers of her left hand and tugged her shirt up with her right. Pressing the tip firmly against her flesh next to the healing wound, she drew the fairly simple design of the iratze rune, enjoying the comforting burn of the process. She finished with a flourish and observed Maura who watched with fascination as the wound healed before her eyes, and the black markings of the rune faded from her sight. In their wake were only pale white tracings to show that a rune had ever been there in the first place.

Suddenly everything Maura had ever known swam before her vision. If things like this were possible, does that mean that the bible she'd followed and adhered to her entire life, the religion of science, was nothing more than a fallacy? Because no amount of science could explain what she'd just witnessed.

"Is everything like this, in your world?" Maura asked in dejected wonder.

Jane wasn't sure how to respond with the drastic change to the blonde's tone. "How do you mean?"

Maura played with the ring on her finger as she answered, "I mean that I have lived my entire life based on the scientific method and logical explanations for everything. If you just turned all of that upside down with this one simple thing, which you seem to take for granted, is that how it will be for everything I know? In order to even have a hope of accepting everything you're telling me, do I have to throw everything I know, or everything I thought I knew, straight out of the proverbial window?"

The honestly earnest expression on Maura's face tugged at Jane a little bit. This was clearly an important topic for the doctor, so she replied as solemnly as she could. "Yeah, probably."

Shoulders slumped slightly, Maura nodded sadly. "I'd still like to stay and learn a bit more, even if you appear not to need my medical assistance. Would that be okay?"

"Are you sure? I mean, it's a lot to take in, it's okay if you need to leave. We don't exactly get a lot of visitors anyway," Jane smoothed her pants at the thigh.

"No, please, if there's a whole new side to the world I thought I knew, U cannot in good conscience ignore any opportunity to further explore it. You understand that, don't you? You strike me as someone who would."

Jane couldn't argue with that. After all, in her youth, she'd spent a fair amount of her free time in between tutoring sessions and training just hanging out at local coffee shops and parks simply to observe the ignorant mundanes going about their 'normal' lives.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I get it."

Three quick raps sounded at the door before it opened and Frankie popped his head in. "We've got another one, Korsak's coming, we're rolling out in ten," he said and then he disappeared.

Jane snorted, "Well, duty calls. I guess I'll see you when I get back." She stood and crossed the floor to the door.

"Wait!" Maura called, scrambling after her. "Do you think I could come along?"

A look of uncertainty crossed Jane's face. "I'm not so sure that that's a good idea, Maura. You aren't trained. If there are a bunch of them, I might not be able to protect you."

Sensing an opportunity with Jane's seemingly less than whole-hearted conviction that she stay, Maura pressed on, "Oh please? I'll stay back, I just want to watch what you guys actually do, what these things look like. I know about them now, if I see one in the street I want to know about it and run in the opposite direction." Maura persuaded. "You wouldn't want to leave me at a disadvantage, would you?"

"Every other mundane is as ignorant as you were," Jane retorted. "But fine," she relented. "Just stay back and keep out of the line of fire."

"There'll be a line of fire?" Maura asked, perplexed. "Why?"

Jane sighed, but the curl at the corner of her mouth showed her amusement. "It's a figure of speech. It means stay out of the fighting." Jane paused. "Please."

"I can do that," Maura readily agreed. Jane nodded and then she left, Maura following after her. She went to her room first to change into gear and then they entered a room at the far end of the hall, a room which had not been a part of Maura's welcoming grand tour.

"Weapons vault," Jane explained as she opened a couple of chests and removed some daggers before crossing to a wall of mounted weapons and taking down two twin blades. They weren't made of steel, they were too pretty to be made from such a general metal. They were almost transparent, with the way the light reflected along the blade.

Sheathing one, she held the other aloft and whispered, "Cassiel," before doing the same with the other, this time with "Ambriel." They flashed as the words were said, glowing with an ethereal white light. Taking sight of Maura's look of confusion she partially explained, "Seraph blades. You have to name them after angels before they truly work for you. Basically, if they don't light up, they aren't going to do more than irritate the damn things."

"Darn," Maura corrected absentmindedly, processing the information. "Any angel name will do?"

"Pretty much," Jane answered, "though we never name a blade after Raziel. He's the one who created us, it kind of gives him a place of honour." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Between you and me, though, Cassiel is my favourite. Particularly after that TV show, what was it… Supernatural? Yeah, after they did a portrayal of him, he was definitely my favourite."

"You have time to watch TV?" Maura asked, thoroughly taken aback.

Jane grinned. "Yeah, Doc, I have a laptop and everything. I don't need a whole lot of sleep, so why not enjoy some of humanity's culture. It's mindlessly entertaining at the very least. A nice little reprieve."

"But – you hunt demons for a living? And then you watch a fictional program about them?" Maura's brow was furrowed, trying to work out how exactly that made any sense.

"It's like those two say: it's a part of the job, the life. You live and breathe this stuff, and after a while it's like there isn't even anything else in the world. Besides, I admit, I've even used a couple of their techniques for my own excursions." Jane chuckled as she plucked a whip from a chest of drawers in the back corner.

"Like what?" Maura had never seen the show. Medical school was not particularly conducive to partaking in America's favourite past-time.

"Everything has to at least pause when you behead it." Jane rummaged around a few of the smaller boxes in a forgotten alcove before extracting a small, plain dagger. It didn't look like it was made of the same thing as the seraph blades, but Maura had no idea what it was for.

Jane handed it to her. "It won't kill anything, but if something happens to the rest of us, and you need something, it should buy you enough time to run away. Okay?"

Maura gingerly took it from Jane's fingers and nodded.

They met the rest of the gang down by the main door, everyone but Maura dressed handsomely in their Shadowhunter black, blades faintly glinting in the light from the grand chandelier above their heads.

"You must be Maura," a deep, yet vaguely cheerful voice said from behind her. The doctor turned to face a man, not unlike Sean in age, but slightly more in shape. "Name's Vince, but everyone calls me Korsak," he introduced himself.

"Pleasure to meet you, Vince," she smiled and looked him over. "No weapons?" she asked, gesturing to the fully loaded foursome behind her.

He shook his head, "Just one, this here wooden stick. I let these four do the dirty work." He leaned toward her to whisper conspiratorially, "Between you and me, they need all the practice."

"I heard that, Korsak," Jane called, sticking the older man with an unamused glare.

Korsak just winked at her. "Shall we?"

They all nodded. "Lead the way, old man," Jane smirked, even as Vince's hand smacked the back of her head.

"Kids," he muttered, shaking his head. He opened the door and sighed, "Just go get in the van."

They walked with purpose to the nondescript vehicle Maura hadn't even noticed the night before in the darkness. They smoothly slid in, everyone automatically going to their usual positions and Maura felt a little lost at not knowing where to be.

Thankfully, Jane rescued her, "Here, come sit next to Frost and I."

"Hey Doc," Barry greeted, nodding at her in hello.

"Hello Barry," Maura replied back, enthused.

Jane rolled her eyes and captured Maura's attention. "Okay, you stay in sight of the van at all times. Korsak's the getaway driver. We all die, you run back here, jump in and tell him to get the hell out of here. You get me? You DO. NOT. COME. TO. US." Jane stared determinedly into Maura's eyes, her gaze flickering back and forth between them. "Promise me," she whispered.

"I promise." Maura said lowly. "Run back here to the van. Okay."

Jane stared at her for another moment before seeming to accept her word. She stared out of the window for the rest of the short journey.

Maura spent the ride half-listening to Frankie's and Giovanni's hushed and hard to discern conversation in the back and watching the thoughtful brunette beside her. Frost was mostly quiet as well, only occasionally tossing input into whatever conversation the two in the back were carrying on.

The van gently rumbled to a stop, but Korsak left the engine running. "Reports says there are a couple of Drevaks here, but stay alert. There could be way more than that, or there could be a mixture depending on which summoner we're dealing with here. They aren't fighters, but we shouldn't let them roam free to deliver their messages. Stick to your parabatai, watch everyone's backs. I don't want any injuries today," Korsak stared particularly hard at Jane with that remark. "Also, I hear Angela's making gnocchi for dinner, and I know not one of you wants to miss that."

The group chuckled at this and even Maura offered up a smile.

"You heard the man, guys. Gi, you and Frankie wait one minute and then follow. Frost and I will take point. Maura, remember, watching only, and run your ass back here if it turns south," Jane instructed, hand poised on the van door handle.

"Butt. Buttocks. Gluteus maximus. Your choice of word is unnecessarily vulgar," Maura offered up, unasked.

Jane gave her a 'Is this really the appropriate time to do this with me?' look and then simply opened the door, dashing out with Frost at her heels. Maura left next, followed closely by Giovanni and Frankie. The two guys traded slaps to the shoulder before they took off down the alley after their friends, leaving Maura to chase after them.

When she joined them, they were in the throes of battle. Korsak had been right to tell them to be alert because Maura counted six things which were definitely not the Shadowhunters she'd arrived with. They were large black creatures, and they were faster than Maura thought possible with their bulk. The stench emanating from them was rotten, like stale garbage left out in the sun too long, and they seemed to be covered in a thin coating of slime.

One of them was on the ground, a seraph blade protruding from its abdominal area, but the others were swarming the Shadowhunters and two of them were on Jane. Maura watched in rapt awe as Jane slashed at one, rolled away, and swiped at the second, fending them off intermittently. Frost was tackling his own off to the side, and Frankie and Giovanni were constantly switching enemies, keeping the ridiculous things on their toes. Or whatever it is they had, Maura wasn't entirely sure of demonic anatomy at this point.

The mouth of one of the demons attacking Jane opened right next to her ear, and Maura caught a fleeting glimpse of blackened spikes instead of teeth. Truth be told, she'd been expecting razor sharp incisors, and the sight of those black, deadly looking quills was more than disconcerting.

With a blade in each hand, Jane finally managed to catch one of her assailants off guard, and severed the neck, just as a groan of agony came from one of the boys.

"Frankie!" Jane hollered, quickly disposing of her other foe and leaping to her brother's side. She made quick work of his Drevak as well, while Giovanni and Frost wrapped up their own encounters. Inspecting his wound after ripping his gear open, she called, "Maura!"

The doctor rushed over and fluidly dropped to her knees beside the fallen warrior. It was easy to see the black tooth-like spine pressed into the flesh of his shoulder. Jane moved to remove it, but Maura's hand stayed her actions. "Don't. We don't want him to bleed out while we get him somewhere else." Instead, Maura ripped a swath of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and held it tightly against the wound, careful not to touch the weapon.

"They're poisonous, Maura, we need to get him to a warlock before anything else." Jane gestured to the other two and they picked up their comrade, lugging him to the van.

"Poisonous spine?" Korsak asked, already putting the van in gear. Jane nodded solemnly. He whipped out a cell phone and hit a speed dial preset.

Jane pulled her stele from her boot and set to drawing iratzes around Frankie's wound. "It won't do much, if anything, but maybe it'll help enough to keep him alive until we get him to Tessa."

"She'll meet us at the Institute," Korsak stated, swinging a sudden left turn and tossing his phone on the passenger seat.

"Hang in there, Frankie, we're almost home, bud. You're gonna be fine," Jane promised, squeezing his hand.

"You're a – a rotten liar, J – Janie," Frankie gasped out, wheezing.

"Korsak! It's spread to his lungs already!" Jane yelled worriedly.

The van noticeably sped up, weaving through traffic dangerously. Maura pressed more firmly, in an attempt to counteract the movements the driving was causing for Frankie's wound.

They came to a sudden stop and Korsak was out of the driver's seat before they could even open a door. He pulled Frankie from the bench seat and carried him single-handedly up the path and walkway to the Institute. The rest followed quickly, hearing Korsak call for this Tessa person and thunder up the stairs to the infirmary.


	4. Day Five

They approached the closed door quietly, straining their ears to hear what was going on.

A voice Maura hadn't heard before was calm and methodical, speaking quickly but lowly to Korsak. "You know this isn't my strong suit, Vincent, but Magnus gave me some tips over the phone on my way here," sounds of rummaging petered through the door. "How did this happen anyway?"

"Whole nest of them against four Shadowhunters. Should be thankful we only came back with a single injury, one you can heal." Korsak's voice was muffled. Jane paced furiously in agitation.

For a few moments there was silence.

"Okay, that should do it. He'll be unconscious for the next day or so as the poison works its way out of his system. I can stay until his recovery is ensured, if that would make you feel better."

"It would, actually. And you know how much you love Angela's gnocchi." He chuckled thickly.

"Yeah," she said softly. "There's that, too."

The two of them emerged from the room, stopping Jane's frenzied movements in their wake.

Tessa was a rather slim woman with brown hair and piercing grey eyes, but her smile was kind when her gaze met Maura's.

"I haven't see you before," she stated, giving her the once-over most Shadowhunters seemed fond of. "Tessa Herondale," she introduced, offering her hand.

"Maura Isles," the doctor responded, grasping tightly and then releasing it.

Angela burst onto the scene just then, and everyone quickly moved to the sides of the hallway to allow the rushing woman through. She stormed right up to Korsak and glared him in the eye.

"Drevak sting," he explained. "I already got Tessa to look at it. He'll be fine tomorrow."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn't even flinch. She turned to Tessa, her face softening slightly. "Hello dear, thank you so much for helping my poor boy."

Tessa closed her eyes and inclined her head. "Not a problem, Ms. Rizzoli," she replied, shoving her hands in her pockets.

Angela's gaze did a full three-sixty of the witnesses, lingering only slightly longer on Maura than anyone else. She huffed. "Well alright then, you lot, go wash up. Dinner will be in ten." And with that, she went back down the stairs.

"Does your mom cook like this all the time?" Maura asked after tapping Jane once on the shoulder. The Shadowhunter nodded stiffly.

"She's Italian. She cooks when she's worried, and well, with our occupations, she's pretty much always worried. Works for us, though, most of the time. She's really good at it," Jane shrugged. She peeked in through the doors to take a look at Frankie and when she was satisfied, she and Frost set off for the armoury. Not knowing what else to do, Maura followed quietly.

They were quick about stripping off their weapons, wiping them down, and placing them back where they'd gotten them. Jane nudged shoulders with Frost when he'd finished, "I'll meet you down there," she said and he nodded, giving Maura a smile as he left. Jane wandered over to Maura and held her hand out.

Maura looked at it quizzically before remembering the dagger she'd tucked away earlier. "Sorry," Maura apologised, placing the weapon back in Jane's hand.

Jane shook it off, "It's not a problem. You forget you're wearing them but then Ma spots it at the dinner table and you get your hide chewed off for it. Just not worth it, frankly."

Maura smiled at the thought of any of the Shadowhunters being reprimanded for bringing weapons to the table. It was… disturbingly normal of them, to be called out during a meal. Sure, for most people it was simply for being late or using their cell phone and not because of angelic blades being on display, but it was still intriguing.

They slowly meandered from the vault and down the hallway toward Jane's room. Suddenly Maura recalled something she'd meant to ask earlier. "What's a parabatai? Korsak said something about it, but I didn't really understand the term."

"Yeah, you wouldn't," Jane said. She lifted the lapel of her fighting jacket to reveal a particularly black rune, close to her heart. "A parabatai is your fighting partner, your brother. You only ever get one in a lifetime. Giovanni is Frankie's, and Frost is mine. You don the matching runes, and you live and die by each other's side according to the oath you speak at the ceremony. It is one of the oldest traditions of our race, one of the most sacred. The runes create a bond between the two of you, and you can usually tell when the other is grievously injured, dying, or dead, unless you specifically channel your energy to block the information flow." Jane explained.

They stopped outside her door. "Erm, one moment," Jane said as she slipped into her room.

Maura took the minute to work through Jane's response and when she reappeared they resumed their trek downstairs. They were amongst the first to arrive at the table, so at Maura's insistence, they set the table and sat down together on one side, heads unconsciously leaning toward each other as Maura asked quiet questions about the demons they'd just dealt with and Jane answered thoroughly yet succinctly.

Angela emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of salad and almost stopped short at the sight of her daughter, her stand-alone, only plays nicely with boys and tomboys, daughter conversing with a girl. Truly conversing, and she swore that right there, right there her daughter let out a surprised giggle.

"Maur, the pen isn't mightier than the sword, you're correct, except that it's a figure of speech. It means words do more than fighting ever will or can. Fighting solve the immediate problem, but words can change society's whole perception to cure things for the long-run." Jane chuckled, this time sounding far more like the daughter Angela had always known. She never heard her call someone by such a nickname, never seen her get this attached and open so off the bat.

She doesn't know how to take it. Angela tried to think of something to say as reached the table to put the salad down, but right on time, Giovanni, Frost, and Korsak came through the door.

"Sean will be down in a moment, he and Tessa are just finishing up," Korsak offered before pulling out a chair. Gio and Frost went straight to the kitchen and started taxiing plates and bowls full of food to the table.

The final two waltzed in a mere minute later, apologising quickly before taking their seats.

This meal was different than the previous day's repast. Last night had been all chaotic, but tonight was sombre and ponderous with one of their own confined to a sickbed.

They were halfway through when someone knocked on their front door. Sean and Tessa traded meaningful looks before Sean excused himself to answer, Tessa following closely behind. Everyone else turned to stare at Angela, except Maura, whose gaze darted around to everyone. Finally, Angela gave in. "Oh, alright then you nosy things. Go!" Angela sighed as she admitted defeat. Everyone jumped up from the table and sprinted out of the door to see who the visitor was, Jane dragging Maura along by the wrist.

A man with silver-streaked dark hair with matching eyes stood just inside the threshold, holding a cane under one arm. He released Tessa from a hug as he shook Sean's hand. Judging from the angles to his facial features, Maura hypothesised that he was partially Asian; a theory which was confirmed when he greeted Jane in Cantonese, "Nei ho ma."

Jane walked forward with a bright smile, "Hello to you, too, Jem," she said, giving him a fierce and brief hug. The others took their turn greeting the mysterious 'Jem' and it seemed like he was both popular and well-liked.

"And you must be Maura," he stated with a polite smile. They shook hands. "Not to worry, Tessa told me you're new around here. I'm Jem."

"Nice to meet you, Jem."

"Right, Jem, Tessa, and I have some stuff to discuss. Jane and Frost, you two are on kitchen clean up. Have fun," Sean instructed as he walked away, Tessa and Jem following, their hands entwined.

"Something's totally up," Frost said as soon as they were out of earshot.

"Understatement of the year," Jane snorted, punching him lightly on the arm. The two walked off toward the kitchen, bantering lightly back and forth.

Giovanni hesitated on the bottom step. "I dunno if you want to go watch them do dishes or something, but I'm gonna head up to the training room if you want to come with," he offered, back slightly turned from Maura.

Maura thought for a moment, but honestly she'd like to know more about Giovanni and the training room sounded strangely enticing. "That sounds great, Giovanni, thanks."

He grinned at her then, "No problem, Maura, any time!" They walked up the stairs together, Giovanni happily rambling on about something Maura couldn't follow. She tried, honest to God, she did, but after the fourth 'hot' within the time span of sixty seconds, Maura was done.

She waited outside of his door as he changed into more suitable attire, his voice coming through the thick wood muffled, but enthusiastic and unrelenting as ever. By the time they reached the training room, Maura was at a complete loss as to what she and Giovanni were apparently discussing.

He walked straight over to a punching bag set-up and plucked some wraps from a convenient shelf to tape his hands up.

She was fairly certain he'd moved on to talking about one summer where the four of them tracked an Oni demon all the way to Western Massachusetts, but she couldn't be sure as she had no idea if Oni demons really existed or if she'd simply misheard.

She felt awful about it, but in all truth, she started to simply let his words wash over her instead of trying to catch them all and hold his train of thought. He stepped up to a large hanging bag and started throwing punches, the constant roll of speech from his tongue coming to a cessation as he concentrated.

It was actually quite soothing for Maura to watch him methodically work the bag, exercising different muscles as he moved with it. And that was where Jane and Frost found the two of them once they'd finished cleaning up. They'd donned their own workout gear, but instead of crossing to join Giovanni at the heavy bag or the speed bag, they moved to an open mat near the centre of the room and faced each other.

Jane and Frost sparring was the most interesting thing Maura'd ever seen. If she thought watching Giovanni was calming, watching those two go at each other was exhilarating. Her heart jumped and cowered as they exchanged light blows and grappled each other to the mat below. She found herself holding her breath on more than one occasion, completely caught up in the intensity of the battle.

After a while, Giovanni joined her in spectating, but before long he was motioned to go forward and join the match. First, the two boys ganged up on Jane, and slowly they worked it around the triangle, everybody getting the two-on-one experience.

"Little game of cutthroat?" Frost asked after Giovanni had completed his turn at staving off the parabatai. Jane shrugged, but Giovanni nodded energetically.

They each backed away to an edge of the mat and paused for a moment to catch their breath. Gi called. "One,", then Frost called "Two," and finally, with a smirk, Jane declared, "Three."

All hell broke loose, there was no organisation between them this time, it was every man or woman for themselves.

Maura thought she might suffer a heart attack from all the constant changes of opponents. Frost was grappling Gi, but then Jane came along and tripped him. While he fell to the floor, Giovanni flipped Jane, but then Barry lunged at him and they just kept going on like that, constantly in motion, never taking a backseat approach.

It was as beautiful as it was deadly, but more than anything it was absolutely captivating.

At the end, Jane was declared the victor only because she was still on her feet. They were all panting, but the boys were lying down like sorry messes, completely spent. Jane flopped to the floor beside them and breathed deeply, soaking up the respite.

"That was spectacular," Maura stated, awed at the prowess and skill displayed mere moments ago.

"Thanks, Doc," Frost grinned.

Korsak appeared at the door. "New info," he said but then stopped. "We were going to meet in five, but given your states you have half an hour to get cleaned up and join us in the board room." He walked away without waiting for a response.

The three groaned, but then reluctantly got up from their comfortable positions. "You heard the man," Jane huffed. "Let's go."

The boys headed off to their rooms, and Maura followed Jane to hers. "We don't often have visitors, so I'm not sure if you're supposed to come with us. I'm not certain though, so don't be offended if they ask you to entertain yourself for a while when we get there, okay?" Jane flung the door to her room open and grabbed a pile of clothes off the bed.

"Sure, no problem," Maura said, eyes darting around the newly exposed area, trying to take in anything that could tell her about the enigma that was Jane Rizzoli.

"I'll be back in fifteen if you wanna just chill in your room or something," Jane promised as she stalked off down the hall to the bathroom.

Maura watched her leave and then retired to her room. She sat perched on the edge of the bed. "Maura, what have you gotten yourself into? You're being highly spontaneous and that is not like you at all." She leaned back across the mattress. She ran a hand through her hair.

"If you wake up and this is all just some really twisted dream, I highly recommend the therapist," she murmured to herself. Not having anything else to do, she stared at the cavernous ceiling until someone knocked on her door.

"Ready to go?" Jane asked, peering in.

"Yes." Maura got up and joined her.

Jane led her to the board room, but didn't go inside. Instead she pulled Korsak aside and they chatted for a quick moment. She came back to Maura's side, "Looks like you're allowed in," she said, and the two of them entered.


	5. Day Six

The room was laid out in a business-like fashion, straight-backed chairs surrounding a large, oval table and a whiteboard occupying an entire wall. Jane motioned Maura into a seat and just sat beside her as the other started to trickle in.

Tessa, Jem, and Sean remained standing by the board, but everyone else sank into chairs and looked up at them expectantly. Jem was leaning against the wall, arms crossed while Tessa stood beside him without assistance, hip cocked and face grim. Sean's brow was furrowed in worry, but he was calm as he cleared his throat.

"Over the past several weeks, mundanes have gone missing-"

"Since when are human disappearances our thing?" Giovanni interjected. Everyone turned to stare at him, Jane in particular had a 'Really?!' look upon her face.

"Since they turn up a few days later killed by supernatural weaponry, Mr. Gilberti," Jem answered, voice low but not unkind.

Sean tossed a folder full of photographs on the table. "A few were killed by demon poison, or demon weapons. Others were killed by a seraph blade while other wore marks and were on their way to becoming forsaken when they were offed with faerie poison."

"Either everybody agreed to start killing humans but neglected to tell us, or we have one sick bastard on our hands," Sean announced.

Tessa piped up, "We're fairly certain it's one person, or one team of people doing this, and we have a few leads. Obviously it's someone who can attain all of these items to use against the local human population, which should rule out the vampires and werewolves. They don't generally cause trouble for either demons or Shadowhunters and thus probably don't have access to the weapons."

"It's probably also safe to rule out demons, as they can't invoke the powers of a seraph blade, let alone wield one long enough to inflict this kind of damage," Jem added.

Tessa nodded. "However, that does leave the Shadowhunters, faeries, and warlocks. I've taken the liberty of presuming that you all are innocent as I feel we would have noticed if you'd acquired such an arsenal." She smiled briefly. "And Jem here spoke to the faerie queen, they go back quite a ways, and he insists that they are not aware of any of their people committing such acts."

"The Queen is very certain and she knows everything her subjects get up to. It's all a matter of asking the right question, and I trust the answer she gave me," Jem supplied.

"Leaves us with warlocks," Frost put in and Tessa nodded.

"I hope you can all agree to rule me out, but I understand any misapprehensions you may have. In any event, there are only a couple of warlocks in town aside from myself, and both of them have solid alibis." Tessa explained.

"So what does that mean?" Gio asked, shifting in his chair.

"It means that there's another warlock here who hasn't declared himself and it means that he is most likely our perpetrator. We have to track him down and hold him until the Clave can schedule a trial for him," Jem responded, uncrossing his arms and tucking his hands into his pockets.

"Hang on, why is he standing trial? The killing of mundanes by Downworlders is in breach of the Accords and so he doesn't get a trial; we just kill him on the spot," Jane argued in confusion.

Sean nodded. "Normally, yes. However the Inquisitor wishes to make an example of him and so he will go to trial and then be publicly dealt with, as a sort of warning to any others who may wish to kill so many innocents."

"That's bullshit," Jane declared, gripping the arms of her chair tightly.

Sean silenced her with a look.

"Whether or not you find it to be bullshit is beside the point, Rizzoli. We will do as the Clave instructs and then we will move on with our work and continue to get things done." Sean commanded.

Tessa took over, "Now, we have reports of magical happenings sprouting up in various places, and the local guys haven't taken credit for the spells. So," she moved to the corner and pulled out a rolled up poster. She tacked it to the whiteboard and the group found they were looking at a map. After picking up a pen, she drew circles, highlighting certain areas.

"These are the locations. Now, they're all in the same general area, so it only makes sense that our warlock has set up camp there too."

Jem stepped in, "We're thinking patrols until we have someone to firmly concentrate on. Look for anything out of the obvious, anything sketchy, you know, the usual. Six hour shifts, in pairs, and everyone rotates. No exceptions."

Sean nodded. "Working in parabatai partners, obviously. Frankie and Giovanni, Frost and Rizzoli, Korsak and myself, Tessa and Jem."

"What about me?" a voice popped up from the back. Angela hadn't spoken all meeting.

"Ange, there's no one else to take a shift. If this takes a while, we can start subbing you in for others, but at the moment, you can just hold down the fort," Sean said, taking a step toward her carefully, holding his hands out, palms up.

"I – I could go with her," Maura offered. Jane's fingers were suddenly around her wrist as people spoke over one another, all saying something different, but all inherently agreeing.

"No, no way," Jane said above them all. "She's had no training, absolutely not."

"Shut up!" Sean hollered over the din, and they all fell silent. He turned to the doctor. "Maura, it's really sweet and courageous of you to offer, but Jane has a point. I cannot and will not knowingly put an innocent such as yourself into harm's way. I'm sorry."

He turned back to the group at large. "Tessa and Jem have offered to go first, then Korsak and I will, then Rizzoli and Frost, and then Giovanni and Frankie, if he's up for it. If he's not, Angela will go with you." He paused. "You all have phones, call us if something seems even the slightest bit amiss. If you witness an abduction, call for back up and proceed with caution. Let's catch this slimebag as soon as possible, alright?"

"Yes, sir," they all answered, crisp and military-like. He nodded for them to leave and they filed out hastily, the younger Shadowhunters automatically going upstairs to the infirmary, Maura following for lack of a better option. They circled Frankie's bed, making themselves comfortable on the chairs.

They stayed there all night. At one point, Jane had approached Maura and told her that she was welcome to return to her room for the night and get a decent night's sleep, but the blonde shrugged her off. If they were going to stay here and pay their respects to their healing brother, the least she could do was sit vigil with them.

Not to mention the thought of having to be in that room by herself while God knows what went on outside the door frightened her a little bit.

Jane acquiesced to her preference, but kept a watchful eye on her that night.

Which is why she knew precisely what time it was when the door to the infirmary opened and Angela strutted in. Two hours 'til dawn.

Angela met her daughter's gaze and gestured for the brunette to move over to her. When she got there, Angela told her quietly to wake the others, that Korsak and Sean had sent a message saying that they thought they found something and were requesting immediate assistance.

Jane nodded but said, "We can't just leave Frankie alone, Ma."

"I can watch him," Maura's voice was thick and laden with sleep, but it was clear and insistent nevertheless. "I can't help you guys fight, but I'm a doctor; looking after patients is kind of my area of expertise."

Angela smiled widely and genuinely. "Thank you, Maura. That would mean a lot to us."

Jane looked like she wished to comment, to say something, but she held her tongue, opting instead to simply rouse the other two and send them to go get their gear. "Downstairs in ten," she instructed, and then after a final look at Maura, she left to put her own gear on.

In ten minutes, the lot of them were on the front steps and making their way to the van. Angela tossed Jem the keys and climbed in the back with the younger generation.

Another ten minutes found their group in an alley at the coordinates Sean had sent them via text, seraph blades drawn, movements quiet and purposeful. They pressed on to the exact location, and spotted the two older men crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets in an alcove. Communicating with silent hand gestures, they moved in.

The building was a modestly sized old shop front, though it looked like it hadn't seen any activity in years, maybe even a whole decade. The chain gate was rusty, but Angela pulled a bottle of hand lotion from a pocket on her belt and greased the hinges before they entered.

The muffled tones of voices crept upon them as they carefully started clearing sections of the building. They found a staircase at the far end, leading down into the depths.

Wisps of black smoked swirled into Frost's periphery and he took a mighty swipe at it with his blade as he loudly whispered, "Iblis demons!"

Out of nowhere, the smoke grew thicker until it formed vaguely human shapes, and then the group was surrounded by them. At least a dozen of them were there, staring at the Shadowhunters as if they were flies on a wall.


	6. Day Seven

Giovanni lunged first, and then all hell broke loose. Seraph blades whistled through the air every way you turned, some striking home in the smoky bodies of the demons, others narrowly missing.

Jane landed a lucky blow and her attacker fell to the concrete floor. She made a break for it, narrowly dodging an errant Iblis' swinging limb by tumbling and sliding to a stop by the top of the staircase. A fleeting look behind her at the action, she barely caught Korsak's eye before she slipped down the steps, his shocked outcry of, "No! Jane!" eaten up by the clash of the battle.

She moved softly, thanking God for every wooden stair which didn't creak as she placed her weight on it.

But then she heard it: the quiet whimper of a soul being tortured and all rational thought fled from her mind. She sprinted down the rest of the stairs, heading desperately toward the voice.

Next thing she knew, she was sprawled on the ground, sharp prickles of pain radiating from the base of her skull. Automatically, she reached up to the source of the hurt, but her hands were immobilised, rope rubbing against her wrists. She tried to speak, but there was something in her mouth, gagging her.

The sounds of battle were still streaming down from above, but it was as though she was in a bubble, the clangs from clashing blades were distorted and echoing in her ears.

"So glad you're awake, Jane dear." The sinister quality to the words made her skin crawl and she fought to open her eyes.

"Now, while my Iblis demons are disposing of your family, we can enjoy a little play time, if you will." It was dark and her vision swam in front of her, but the sharp angles to his face screamed psychotic while the mischievous sparkle in his eyes promised obscene amounts of pain.

"Not very talkative for a Shadowhunter, are you? Well, that's alright. I think I'll have you absolutely _begging_ for mercy before too long." He chuckled and Jane felt her blood turn icy. "I try not to kill any of my subjects with the weapons of their own kind, but I think it's only poetic justice for you to die by the blade of a mortal human being, don't you?"

The smallest glint reflected off the knife he held as he ran it along her neck. "It's called a scalpel. The doctors use them in the hospitals to help save people, but I've found they're also quite useful at dispatching people from this life."

The smile dropped from his face as he brought his fist down over Jane's open hand, pushing the cutting tip through all the nerves and muscles of her palm. She shrieked in pain, the sound only slightly muffled by the gag, completely turning herself over to the excruciation.

"There now, that wasn't so bad, was it, Janie?" He smirked. "I can call you Janie, can't I? I've learned so much about you these past weeks. After all, you have to know your enemy and I knew it was only a matter of time until you Shadowhunters found me." He leaned towards her, pressing his nose against her hair as she squirmed, and inhaled deeply. "And oh, how glad I am that you came down here first, all by yourself. You have no idea how long I've hoped for this, for the chance to break you."

He picked up another scalpel from the tray at his side. "You're looking a bit unsymmetrical, Janie, would you like me to fix that for you?" She shook her head violently, wishing desperately that the rag was gone so she could call for help. "It's not a problem. I don't mind," he assured her, and then his hand vanished from her sight once more and she howled in pain.

"That sound is pure music to my ears, Janie, I thank you." He leaned back, reaching again for his tray. "And now, I think our time has come to an end. You can hear them, the steady increase to the footsteps. They're making their way through my demons, though I must say, they certainly have taken their time, haven't they? I thought you were supposed to be these great warriors." He laughed. "Not that I'm complaining, I do so enjoy these extra minutes with you." He sobered, taking in her sweaty, frightened appearance.

He held another scalpel aloft, pointing it at her face about a foot above her heart. "I do so love the smell of lavender," he sighed. "And fear."

His hand dropped and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see her murderer any longer.

But the searing pain in her chest never came and when she opened her eyes, Korsak was there, tossing a bloody seraph blade to the side and dropping down to his knees beside her. His face was haunted as he bent over her, removing her gag and untying her hands.

She tried to speak, but she couldn't find the words and besides that, what could she say. She couldn't even look him in the eye as he lifted her into his arms and carried her like a child.

She closed her eyes and the world fell silent.

**CHAPTER THREE**

_The voices drifted to her, like they traversed oceans and mountain ranges just to find her ears._

_"I'm glad you knew better than to remove the scalpels."_

_"Doc, we're fighters. We know it's better to leave the weapons in to stem the bleeding."_

_"Is she going to be okay?"_

_"Frankie, she'll be fine. Physically, at least, with time."_

_"Does she need another iratze? Parabatai runes are the most powerful, perhaps I should-"_

_"She's okay for the moment, Frost."_

_"Why isn't she waking up?"_

_"When a person goes through a trauma, sometimes they stay unconscious for a long while, so that their minds can repair themselves enough to rejoin the living completely."_

_"Did you get him?"_

_"Angela-"_

_"Did you get him?!"_

_"He's downstairs. Tessa and Jem are watching him. He's completely useless in the rig they set up for him. He can't use any of his powers."_

_"I want him dead."_

_"I know you do, but the Clave-"_

_"I want him dead now."_

_"We can't."_

_"I want him to suffer."_

_"That, perhaps we can do."_

_None of this made any sense, she thought, as she floated away on a cloud._

She slept for two days. Angela, Frankie, and Frost all refused to leave her bedside. They lived off of takeout and Campbell's soup. Maura was often in there with them, but the melancholic aspect of the entire affair depressed her and when she cried she preferred to be alone.

She'd always preferred to be alone. Until Jane came along, injured and unconscious, just as she was now. Except last time she'd woken after only a small window of time and taken her back to their home with them.

It was the first time she'd felt like she'd had a friend. And now that one friend had almost died and it shook her to her core.

She tried to soothe herself by making food one night, but burst into tears when she lost track of time and burned the water for the pasta she'd wanted to make.

The four of them were at Jane's bedside in the infirmary when Sean walked in and announced, "He's being moved tomorrow night."

Everyone was shocked when the next words fell from the half-asleep lips of the one lying in bed. "Who?"

A bewildered pause. "Hoyt, Jane, he's being taken to Idris tomorrow to be punished for what he's done."

"Good," she murmured, eyes flickering open. "I hope he burns in hell." And then she fell back asleep just as Angela jumped from her chair to check her over.

"Oh thank God," she cried as she sat on the edge of her daughter's bed. "Thank God."

Maura was quite sure God didn't personally have anything to do with Jane's surprising fleeting return to the world of the conscious, but she knew how worried mothers were: desperate.

If Maura had been religious, no doubt she too would be sharing in Angela's sentiment. As it was, she thanked Dr. George E. Goodfellow, the first civilian doctor in the United States of America to be a trauma surgeon.

She left them to their relieved celebrations and retired to her room. She picked up the book from the table, one Tessa had handed her the night Jane came back injured.

_"I was once an outsider like yourself to this world. When I was first introduced, Will showed me this book and told me that if I really wanted to learn about it, if I wanted to stay with the Shadowhunters and make this Institute my home, that this book would tell me everything I wished to know and so much more." She smiled as she ran her fingers over the aged cover. "He was right." She placed the book on the table and left just as quietly as she'd arrived._

She sat on her bed and read. She was there all night, flipping page after page, absorbing all of the information the Shadowhunters Codex had to offer. The knock on her door was not the only thing to surprise her into pausing. At some point, the night had turned to day while she'd been reading and she hadn't noticed.

Frankie peered inside. "Hey," he said softly. "Jane's awake, and asking for you."

Her heart leapt in her chest.

"She knows you're the one who helped fix her up, her hands I mean, and she wants to talk to you about it."

The joy in her chest dropped only the slightest amount. Sure, Jane wanted to see her, but only for her medical expertise. _But,_ she reminded herself and brightened considerably,_ she did ask for you._ _Small victories… small victories._

Everyone was crowded around the bed when she got there, and automatically she reached to smooth her hair. She wished she'd gone to bed, the darkened of her nasojugal fold was sure to give away her sleepless night, and her eyes were probably bloodshot.

"Maura," Jane breathed her name as she entered. She looked around at her family. "Can you guys give us a moment, please?" she asked, and after the group at large traded questioning looks, they bustled out, Angela declaring that she must make Jane's favourite, chicken cacciatore for dinner to celebrate.

Jane flushed slightly and instead of gesturing to one of the many chairs around her bed, patted the blanket beside her.


	7. Day Eight

Maura perched lightly, ready to sprint up and hurry away as soon as possible if the situation required it. This was all new territory for her.

"I hope you don't mind, I don't really need to talk to you," Jane said, staring at her gauze-bandaged hands in her lap.

A lump formed in Maura's throat and she was sure that if it was possible for a person's heart to drop in their chest, that's exactly what was happening to her. "Oh."

Jane looked up at the hopeless tone of voice. "I mean, I'd still like to talk to you, but my family was hovering and it was just really overwhelming and you're not like that," she hesitated. "You have like, this calming presence or something, I don't really know, but I automatically relax around you and I don't know why because that's never happened to me before, but that's why I asked you here."

Maura was a little lost. "Okay?" She agreed, completely unsure.

"Thanks for fixing me, by the way. They were telling me about it."

Maura nodded stiffly, "You're welcome."

_They crashed through the door, hollering all holy hell like every demon in existence was nipping at their heels. They stormed up the stairs, Korsak in the lead, a body hanging limply from his straining arms. She rushed out from the infirmary, where she'd been sitting beside Frankie, watching over his recuperating body. He had woken as she'd darted out the door, but she only said she'd be back as soon as she could._

_It was sooner than she anticipated. They surged past her, straight into the hospital room, straight past Frankie, and deposited the body on the make-shift operating table. She analysed the crowd and realised with a surge of dread just who had to be lying on the table. Pushing through the audience, her fear was confirmed._

_It was Jane. Scalpels were sticking out of her palms and Maura swallowed dryly. Her mind whirred through all of the nerves and bones which were destroyed when the blades were thrust through her flesh. She almost shied away from the sight, but this was what she did. Despite her last operation, despite her personally enforced sabbatical, she could still fix this, she could still fix Jane._

_"Everybody out, except Frost," Maura ordered, mentally organising how she'd have to go about this. Arguments and outrage flared up around her, particularly from Angela and Korsak._

_"Out," she stated firmly, glaring at them all. "Unless someone else here has a doctorate in medicine and can tell me every single nerve which was severed in each hand, then you can all get the hell out while I save her hands."_

_"Go." Frost said, adding his voice to hers. "Let the Doc do her thing. I'll be right here with her the entire time."_

_Sean coaxed Angela out of the room while Giovanni had to physically drag Korsak away. Tessa and Jem left quietly, chatting softly to Angela and Korsak, comforting them. Jem closed the door behind them with one last long look at Jane's body on the table._

_"Maura? What's happening? What's wrong with Janie?" Frankie asked from his own bed, and Maura suddenly realised she'd forgotten he was even in the room. She looked over just in time to see him valiantly attempt to sit up._

_"Don't even, Frankie!" She snapped, then immediately felt bad about it. "Your sister's injured, but she's going to be fine. Frost and I will patch her up." She dug a needle from a drawer and walked over to him. "You can see her when you wake up," she promised, and then stuck the point into his neck. She ignored his weak indignant reply and walked back over to Jane._

_"Barry, I need gloves and gauze, bandages, tape, and you're going to need your stele." She glanced up at the ceiling. "And if you could find a way to get me some better light, that would be much appreciated."_

_She tied her hair back as Frost pulled a pile of stones from a cupboard. "Witchlights," he said, as if that explained everything. He stuck them on the chandelier above their head and they glowed brightly._

_Maura thanked him and he nodded tightly, withdrawing his stele from his boot._

_"I'm going to take these out. If you could toss them in the sink back there, that'd be great."_

_She was diligent. Cleaning the wound with some antiseptic she'd found in a drawer. She pulled one blade out, and Jane whimpered on the table. Peering into the wound, she saw that no bones had been severed; a blessing within a curse. She applied an ointment, yet another thing she'd scavenged from the cabinets behind her._

_Tenderly, she wrapped the hand in gauze and applied a secure, but not suffocating band of tape._

_She treated the next hand just as delicately, Frost watching her every move. "Alright, Barry, I'm not quite sure how exactly your iratzes work…"_

_"They help to eliminate pain, so that we can continue to fight even if we're injured in the midst of battle, and they also help speed the healing process along so that we aren't confined to the sidelines for too long. Shadowhunters get cagey real easy, Doc."_

_She nodded. "Okay. Apply an iratze to each hand, or wrist, and we'll see how far that takes us."_

_He did as she asked, the black markings dissolving into the skin almost immediately. They repeated the process over and over again, each time the runes taking just a few extra seconds to sink down and fade to silvery tracings._

_Finally, they stopped. Barry's hand was cramping from the repetitive motions, and Maura had changed the bandaged twice already._

_Technically speaking, Jane should sleep for another couple of days. Maybe more, maybe less._

_They clapped each other on the back, tidied up their appearances, and went out to talk to the rest._

"So they're transferring him tonight?" Jane took a stab at small talk.

"That's what I hear. I believe Sean said they would be moving him by portal in an hour or two."

Jane settled back onto her pillows. "Good."

"How are your hands?" Maura asked, the doctor in her unable to contain herself.

Jane grimaced. "I can't really do anything with them. They feel weak. I'm weak. We're useless."

Maura took Jane's hand in hers. "You're not useless. With some rehabilitation exercises, you should regain full use of both of your appendages," Maura assured her.

Snorting, Jane just said, "Sure," in a 'yeah, right' tone.

"When can I start them?"

Maura glanced down at the hand in her grip. "Once the scabs are gone and the scar tissue isn't in danger of being broken, I see no reason as to why you can't begin. I can put you in touch with a highly recommended physiotherapist professional, if you like. I know a few."

Jane shook her head. She looked vulnerable, almost shy as she asked, "If you're still on sabbatical, and I mean, if you still wanted to hang around here, do you – would you – I mean-"

Maura squeezed Jane's wrist gently. "I'd be honoured."

Jane exhaled loudly with relief. She half-smiled, "Okay."

Without any warning, Jane started hyperventilating. Maura placed her hand on her chest, "Jane, Jane, focus on me okay, focus on my eyes." Frightened brown eyes wavered as they met hers. "Good, okay, now just breathe. Relax. Nothing's happening. It's okay." She spoke softly for a few minutes until Jane's breathing returned to her usual heart rate. "What happened?"

"I just – dinner tonight, Maura, how am I supposed to hold a fork? There is no way in hell I am going to accept any baby treatment, but my hand doesn't curl that way anymore and _I can't pick up a fucking fork_." She sounded so lost and miserable, Maura wasn't sure how to respond.

"Well let's just see. Can you move any of your fingers?"

Jane gritted her teeth in determination and tried. She could move her thumb decently. Her index finger made her jawline slightly more pronounced, but it was bearable. She couldn't move her middle or ring fingers at all, and the attempt brought noticeable tears to her eyes. Her pinky gave her the same result as her index.

"Thumb and index. Pinky. But I don't know how that helps me."

Maura thought for a moment. "Can you squeeze your thumb and index fingers together? Like a clamp almost?"

Jane gave her an odd look but attempted the movement anyway. She grinned at her success.

Maura felt the urge to clap, but only nodded happily instead. "Excellent. We can just tuck a fork in there and you can eat almost exactly as normal."

Jane's face fell swiftly, shattering the pride that had been there not moments before. "I don't want to do it. They're all going to be looking at me. I can feel the pity already, hear the thoughts whistling around in their heads that I'm weak; that I'm not good enough to be a Shadowhunter. How could I have been so stupid?" Jane muttered angrily at herself.

Maura's mouth dropped open in a gasp. "Jane!"

"What, Maura?!" Jane snapped, then paled. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bite at you I just-"

"You're frustrated. And that's understandable. But no one is going to think less of you for this. No one will look at you and think you're weak. You're incredibly strong. You survived. That isn't something to merely dismiss." Maura stated. "And yes, they'll be looking at you. They almost lost you, but they didn't and they're trying to figure that out within their own heads right now."

"Still," Jane murmured. "Do you think you could use your doctor voice and persuade them that it's best if I eat in here tonight, without everyone? You can claim it's for the good of my recovery if you like, I don't care, make up any lie you like."

Maura blushed. "I can't, Jane, I'm sorry."


	8. Day Nine

Jane turned crestfallen.

"Don't misunderstand, please, it's not because I don't want you. I am just physically unable to lie. I develop hives and occasionally suffer vasovagal episodes." Maura explained. "But there may be something I can sway to get you what you desire without having to fabricate anything." She smiled reassuringly at the hopeful brunette. "I'll see what I can do."

"It's 'swing', Maur. Something you can swing, not sway," Jane said with a large smile on her face.

Maura looked at her, perplexed. "That doesn't make any more sense than 'sway' but I'll take your word for it."

They spent the next couple of hours chatting, Jane answering Maura's questions readily and more than happily.

"How do you even know about all of this?" Jane asked at one point, after answering a rather intense inquiry about the Accords.

"Oh, Tessa gave me the Shadowhunters Codex and told me that if I wanted to learn about your world, that it was the best resource she'd ever come across." Maura had replied.

"That would make sense," Jane conceded. "Tessa's probably read more books in her lifetime than all of the Shadowhunters put together." At Maura's quizzical stare, she added, "As a warlock, Tessa doesn't age. She has more time than most."

"So she's immortal?"

Jane shook her head. "Not quite. She can still be killed, but she won't be dying of old age anytime soon."

Maura has pondered that for a few moments before firing another at Jane and off they went.

Finally, Maura stood up from her spot and moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

Maura turned. "Well, it's almost the hour when you guys generally consume your evening meal, I was going to explain your absence and bring you some food. Is that alright?"

Jane coloured. "Oh, yeah, no that'd be great thanks."

Maura smiled tightly and closed the door behind her, wandering down to the kitchen.

The voices hit her before she made it to the door.

"-not telling her, not in any way, I don't care what you think, Sean! She's safely in the dark and-"

"Angela! How long do you think she'll be able to stay in the dark? You heard his mad ravings when he was here, you know he wants her and will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. She needs to know so that she can prepare and not be ignorant about it. If she thinks we're holding her here simply for the sake of holding her, she is damned well not going to stay put. I wouldn't either." Sean interrupted loudly.

Maura pressed against the wall.

"How am I supposed to tell her, Sean? How am I supposed to explain this to her? She's gonna want to get right out of that bed and go hunting for the bastard herself!"

Maura swore she felt her heart stop beating in her chest when those last words registered in her brain. _It couldn't be_. She pressed her back against the wall, using the support.

A pause. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing, Ange."

"HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY THAT?!"

"If you weren't her mother and all you and all you had to go on, all you knew of her were the stories you'd heard on the street, is she someone you'd want hunting you down like a rabid dog?"

"I don't care, Sean, she's still my baby girl and I am not going to put her through that. I am not going to tell her that the people she trusted most fucked up, okay? How am I supposed to tell her that he escaped? How am I supposed to tell her that we let her down?"

Sniffles.

"I've already let her down so often, Sean, how am I supposed to do it again, but this time for something so much more important?"

"It's what being a parent is all about. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You've known that for ages."

She fled. She flew back up the stairs, but stopped short of the infirmary doors. How was she supposed to explain? Was she even supposed to explain? Someone had to tell her, someone had to warn her.

She paced outside the door fretfully until her salvation arrived in the form of Sean, agedly climbing the stairs.

He took one look at her and knew. He nodded at her knowingly and patted her on the shoulder as he passed. Placing a hand on the door handle, he took a deep breath before he stepped into the line of fire.

Jane looked up as he walked in. "Where's Maura?" She asked, peering around him to try and catch a glimpse of the blonde.

"She's outside. There's something I need to discuss with you. And you're not going to like it." He stopped several feet away from her bed, refusing to meet her gaze.

Dreaded dead weight filled her stomach. "What?" She asked, voice low and clearly expecting the worst.

"Hoyt's gone."

Jane's blood stopped cold in her veins. "How?" was the only thing she managed to get out between her painfully gritted teeth.

"The guards portaled in from Idris just fine, but on their way back through, when they were transporting him, one of them must have been working for Hoyt. On the other side of the portal, all the Inquisitor received was one dead guard and no Hoyt."

Jane remained eerily silent.

"We don't have all the facts, but what we've figured out is that they portaled someplace else, and then sent the body through to get rid of the connection between Idris and wherever they landed."

Still nothing.

"We've got all hands on deck for this, though Janie-" he stepped forward.

"Don't call me Janie."

Sean backed off. "He's the Clave's top priority right now, and even the Council has deigned it fit to send help from all the different groups."

Jane's tone turned deadly. "Who's coming?"

Sean almost did a double-take at the tone. "Well, there were volunteers within each group. Joe Grant and his pack from the werewolves, Gabriel Dean and a group of fellow, like-minded faerie knights, Tessa from the warlocks, of course, and finally, a vampire called Casey Jones put forth his coven."

Jane snorted. "Is this just a group of everyone who wants to see me dead?"

Thoroughly confused, Sean asked, "What? No. They're coming to help protect you.

"I don't know what he told you, but Casey Jones is not here to protect me, Cavanaugh," she sighed. "A few years back, we had a thing. I didn't know he was a vampire and he tried to kill me. I highly doubt that to him, those years have changed his feelings."

Visibly, he trembled as he processed this new information. "He won't be part of it then."

"Apparently he will," Frost said, strolling in unannounced. He nodded at Jane. "I'm her parabatai, she told me about them and then Angela just told us downstairs of the Clave's plan in conjunction with the Council. As soon as she said Casey, I demanded to speak with the Inquisitor."

He growled in frustration. "Somehow, Casey convinced them that all of that was behind the two of you, that it was simply a misunderstanding on both of your parts and wouldn't in any way influence his decision to protect your life. I, of course, called bullshit, but no one would listen to me. They insisted that a vampire of his standing would hold true to his word or suffer the full extent of cruelty the Clave has to offer."

Plunking himself heavily in one of the chairs, Frost continued, "But no worries. The rest of us plan to keep as much distance between the two of you as possible. You'll never be alone with him and from here on in, everyone's armed at all times. No way the little shit is going to get you. No way either of them all."

In spite of the situation, Jane felt the urge to smile. "Thanks, Frost."

He nodded. "I got your back, bud."

"So, what," Jane turned to Sean. "I just sit here and pretend he's not out there? Am I bait? What's the plan here?"

Cavanaugh sighed. "Your mother is clearly a fan of having you stay here and not worry. I told her that was bullshit, that you'd already be concerned."

Jane inclined her head in thanks.

"However, until you're healed, you're not really of use. We won't be using you as bait, but he is going to know that you're here. I don't think he'll come after you though. Not for a while at least. He'll want to get some playthings first, from what he said when he was in custody here. You should have enough time to recover and prepare yourself."

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Cavanaugh was right about one thing: Hoyt wasn't going after her immediately, a fact which was proven the next day. She received an unmarked box, and inside of it were the bloody extracted fangs of a vampire, together with an unsigned note:

_Our playtime was interrupted last time, but no matter, Janie,_

_I'll ensure that doesn't happen again._

_Have this token of my word._

_A promise of our future together._

_Until next time,_

_Your personal boogeyman._

Maura was in her room, paging through the Codex when Jane banged on the door. She let the brunette in and waited for her to speak.

"Do you think we could start today?" Jane nodded toward her hands. "I'm going stir-crazy. I can't leave unless I have a whole entourage watching my every move and I can't defend myself. I need to get better."

Maura pursed her lips. It would be best if she waited another day at least.

Jane noticed her hesitation and ploughed on, "Please, Maura, won't you help me?" Her voice was soft and pleading.

No one could've said no, least of all Maura Isles. "Alright." She acquiesced and took Jane through a couple of simple exercises.

The pain ricocheted up Jane's arms as she moved through the positions Maura showed her. But she ground her teeth together, furrowed her brow in stern concentration, and refused to back down.


	9. Days Ten & Eleven

They went at it for over an hour and by the end of it, every muscle, tendon, and nerve in Jane's arms were protesting loud enough to wake the devil himself.

"You should put ice on those," Maura instructed, gesturing to the brunette's forearms.

Jane shook her head. "Nah, a couple of iratzes should do it."

"Right. Because you guys have those." Maura murmured, eyes following the trail of swirling silver up Jane's skin.

"You can still go, you know," Jane told her. "Get the hell out of dodge before shit gets real and you get hurt." Jane hesitated and met Maura's eyes, staring at her intently. "You know it's going to happen, right? If you hang around here? You will get hurt. It may not be physical, although it most likely will be, but you can get your heart metaphorically torn out and stomped to bits just as easily as it could happen literally."

Maura looked at her with wide eyes.

"I'm just saying. No one would fault you if you turned tail and saved yourself now. I mean, yeah there are all of these guys here 'protecting me', but if Hoyt's as serious as I believe he is, they aren't going to be able to stop him. No one is. He'll get to me and he won't care who he destroys in the process.

"I'd rather minimise the casualties."

Swallowing the fear in her throat, "I'm not going anywhere. If it's going to get as ugly as you think, then I can think of worse people to have on your side than a doctor, regardless of your ability to use iratzes," she assured. She looked up and changed the subject. "Now, let me have a look at your bandages. They might require changing."

They allowed the concern to morph easily into a doctor-patient repartee, sticking to the easy questions about pain and discomfort, the tightness of the tape. When Maura finished wrapping Jane's fingers, she patted Jane once on the leg and got up to leave.

"Where are you going?" Jane asked, swinging her legs off the bed.

Maura stopped dead in her tracks and twirled back to face the brunette. "I thought you might be hungry, and recalling our conversation from earlier, I assumed you'd prefer if I brought you some food that you could eat here in privacy as opposed to making you go downstairs to dine in front of an audience." Maura cocked her head. "Am I wrong?"

Jane actually smiled. "No, you're quite right, but I'm happy to walk with you so long as I don't have to eat down there." She shrugged. "I should probably say hit to people today anyway. I think they're kind of steering clear of my 'wrath' for the moment. But it's not their fault, I mean, it's Hoyt's fault. And I'm gonna get that son of a bitch if it kills me."

Maura's hand shot out and grasped Jane's elbow, forcing both of them to stop. "No. Don't let it kill you. If you let it kill you, he wins, and everyone who holds you dear, everyone who loves you will lose with you."

Jane looked at her as though she'd never seen her before in her life. Shaking herself out of it, she said, "Come on, I bet there's some great leftovers in the fridge."

Maura followed quietly, letting the subject drop.

The chatter stopped abruptly when they entered, and Jane rolled her eyes. "It's just me, guys, I'm not going to fillet you or anything. Just here for some food."

Korsak nodded to the counter, "Frost and Angela are off patrolling. Food's out. I can get you a plate and you can join us if you like."

"No thanks, guys. I think I'll just go back up, imbibe some protein and stuff and then keep being ridiculously safe and secure," Jane muttered sarcastically.

Maura had given a small wave as she walked in, but then she'd gone straight to the cabinet to grab a couple of plates. Sure that Jane wouldn't want to eat entirely alone with Frost on patrol with Angela, she piled both plates high with food. She was certain that Jane would be more than happy to finish off anything she didn't eat.

"I've got it," Maura said, referring to the plates in her hands.

Jane smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

They ate in relative silence, back in Jane's room. The brunette had insisted she didn't have to return to the infirmary, and Maura had to agree that there really was no positive side effect to her being confined there.

Jane insisted on one last round of physical therapy for her hands if Maura wanted her to go to bed quietly without a fuss. Of course the doctor readily agreed, but kept it short and relatively painless before leaving the room. After taking the plates back to the kitchen and washing them, she retired to her own room.

In the bustle of Institute life, she'd let her normal life get absolutely untidy. She devoted the remainder of her evening to straightening out her priorities. First of which, was work. She was expected back in almost no time at all, but she felt compelled to stay and continue to learn from these Shadowhunters.

And if she were honest with herself, she'd loathe herself for the rest of her life if she left them during this time of unrest, particularly Jane. She was surprised to find that she'd grown quite attached to the warrior in the brief amount of time they'd known each other.

She picked her phone out of her purse and tried not to let her stomach sink at the fact that there were no new calls nor text messages. It was to be expected. She didn't really have any friends or close colleagues who might be bothered to attempt to interact with her.

Apart from Susie, of course, and speaking of the Senior Criminalist, she would be the first phone call.

"Susie Chang."

"Hello, Susie, it's Maura Isles."

"Oh, hi Doctor Isles. Are you coming back soon?"

Maura felt her heart warm a little bit at the sincerity in the question. "I'm afraid not, Susie. In fact, I'll be emailing you my temporary letter of resignation shortly, if you could do me a favour and pass that along."

"You're leaving?" Susie asked, shocked.

Maura nodded and then realised the criminalist wouldn't have been able to see such an act. "Yes. I've found a different avenue of education to pursue for the moment and I don't know how long it will be before I can come back, if I can come back. This is really the best way to go about things, I believe."

"We'll be so sorry to see you go, Doctor Isles. You were a wonderful superior, and if Doctor Pike is your replacement, we will miss you like crazy."

Touched was an absolute understatement as to how Maura was feeling at the moment. "Oh, Susie, that's really very sweet. I should be able to come by later this week to clear out my office for whomever my replacement is. If you wished to maintain correspondence with me after my departure, I would not be opposed." Maura lowered her voice to a mock-whisper, "In all honesty, you are the best technician there, Susie. I would not have been able to get through all of the work and reports I was able to without you. I hope your new superior understands that quickly and uses you to your full potential."

"I'd love that Doctor Isles. You just give me a call on the day you're planning to come down and I'll set everything up for you."

"Thanks, Susie," Maura smiled.

"Not a problem, Doctor."

"Susie? You can just call me Maura now."

Maura swore there was a grin to Susie's voice as well when she said, "It'd be my pleasure, _Maura_."

The next phone call was a bit trickier. It entailed having to schedule a time to pick up her beloved pet geochelone sulcata – an African spurred tortoise – from the pet carer she'd left him with for her sabbatical.

The phone call ended with Maura agreeing to pick Bass up at some point the next afternoon. She didn't think that this would be a problem as, in all honesty, she needed to return to her apartment for some things as well as her car if she was going to be staying her much longer. And that was definitely her plan.

She jumped up from her bed and trotted downstairs, catching Korsak just leaving the kitchen.

"Hello, Vince," Maura greeted. "Does everybody linger in the kitchen?"

He seemed a little startled to find her outside of the second floor, particularly without Jane, but he didn't let himself be too obvious about it. "Oh, yeah, it's an Italian thing… everyone hangs around in the kitchen because there's food and it's warm and generally it's a good place to talk. Is there something you need, Maura?"

Maura nodded. "Actually, there is. You see, I was wondering if you could tell me the Institute's address. I need to pick some stuff up from my apartment if I'm going to remain here, at least until Hoyt is captured, and I have to give the cab driver some sort of clue as to where we are." She giggle awkwardly. "I wasn't paying too much attention that one time I went out with you all."

Korsak looked at her as though she'd grown a third eye. "You don't need to call a cab, Maura. If you're staying here with us, it won't be too long before you're inducted as family." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "I'll give you a ride."

Maura shook her head, "No, thank you, I wouldn't wish to intrude. And I have a car at my place, I just didn't think of it the night I came here. Really, I don't want to put you at a disadvantage."

Korsak stared at her sternly. "It's no trouble. You helped fix up Frankie and Jane. Let me drive you across town."

Maura hesitated, "I also have a pet I was hoping to bring with me. Is there a policy here against it?"

Korsak laughed. "Not at all. You should see the menagerie I have going in my attic lair. Dogs, kittens, and even an iguana. It's why they gave me the top floor. There's a bit of a garden up there, gives the dogs a place to roam and such. What kind of pet do you have?"

"He's a tortoise. His name is Bass. He's very well trained and he'll stay in my room the whole time. He doesn't take a whole lot of energy to take care of, but he is a lovely creature."

He smiled, "I look forward to meeting the little guy."

It was Maura's turn to laugh. "He's not that little. He weighs almost a hundred pounds these days."

"Alright, I'll meet the big guy, then," Korsak winked. "Now, have you finally decided to surrender and let me drive you?" His look turned to that of one with whom you wouldn't want to mess.

Even Maura could tell when an attempt would be futile, so she graciously gave in and Korsak said they could leave around one the next day before taking his leave of her.

She stepped lightly back up the stairs and fired off her resignation letter, happy with her efforts of the evening.

The next morning though, her victory didn't seem terribly rewarding.

"You're going with Korsak?" Jane asked after Maura's told her about what she'd gotten up to after the brunette had gone to bed. They were making idle chit chat while they went through more exercises.

"Yeah, he offered and he wasn't terribly keen on taking no for an answer, so I accepted his generous offer." Maura looked at her strangely.

"I could've gone with you. I wouldn't have minded."

_Oh._ "I know you would've, Jane, but I didn't want to put you off-track with your recovery schedule. And I was worried you'd be caught in Hoyt's cross-ties if you left the Institute. I just want you to be safe, you know," Maura explained.

"Cross-hairs, Maur. The saying is 'caught in the cross-hairs', because of the scope of a sniper rifle," Jane corrected her absently, staring off at a far wall.

"Hmm. I suppose that makes a bit more sense than cross-ties. I wasn't sure how one would get themselves stuck in a railroad track."

Jane chuckled despite herself. "I'd be fine, you know. He's not coming after me just yet. He made that abundantly clear with his note yesterday. Besides, _Doctor_, isn't the fresh air supposed to be good for me and help rebuild my constitution or something? The health benefits must be through the roof, really…"

It took Maura a moment to realise that Jane was not in fact simply being a good patient, she was trying to worm her way into leaving the house in a way no one would really wish to dispute; under a doctor's orders.

"Generally speaking, yes, but usually when one is given that recommendation, it does not involve the high probability of death which it includes for you," Maura replied, not a little bit proud at the way she'd phrased her response.

"Come on, Maura! Look at all the progress I've made and it's only been one day! I can take care of myself!"

"You wouldn't be going without your 'entourage' as you've deigned fit to refer to them as," Maura sighed. "But fine, you are, of course, welcome to accompany me."

"Yes!" Jane made her best attempt at a fist pump.

"On the condition that no one has any qualms about such an adventure," Maura added.

"Maura!" Jane groaned. "That's not fair!" She whined.

But Maura was having none of it. "Those are my terms, Jane, nothing less will get you in that car with me at one o'clock."

"Fine," Jane growled as she got out of bed. "I'm going to go get everyone's permission. I will see you in the van." She stormed out.

Maura would've been concerned if she didn't know how vehemently everyone wanted to keep Jane safe. She called Susie to give her the warning that she'd be dropping by later that day. And at one o'clock, she was seated primly in the passenger seat of the van, waiting for Korsak to exit the Institute and join her.

Imagine her surprise when he didn't emerge alone. Jane was smirking smugly beside him as they both approached the vehicle.

"There's no way-" Maura started to protest.

"Yes, way, Doc. I got approval. The entourage is following in another car. It'll be great! Let's have at this adventure, shall we?"

Maura wanted to smack the proud look off of her face. She settled for the question she wanted answered, desperately: "How?"

Jane's face fell a bit but she rallied nicely and replied, "Easy. Told them I wouldn't take no for an answer. I'd be back to tip-top shape in no time and then there would be no mercy the next time they faced me on the sparring mat. That, and I may have hinted to the entourage it could be a bit of a bait trap. They got on board right quick."

Maura was fuming. She opened her mouth to berate the brunette, but Jane placed her hand lightly yet forcefully over the blonde's mouth. "No way, Doc, I won. I'm coming. Deal with it." And she jumped into the back seat.

Korsak nodded at her, shrugging at the turn of events. All Maura could do was sigh and go with it. After all, she had made the agreement. She felt like cursing about her unsuccessful plan.

The drive was silent after Jane's failed attempts at reconciliation with the doctor. Maura simply stared out the window and when they reached her apartment – Jane giving Korsak the directions and surprising even Maura with her ability to multi-task so well – she didn't wait to see if Jane would follow.

She did. Maura was packing the last of the clothes she'd need when she felt Jane's hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, Maur, look at me."

It was a mistake, to look at those puppy-dog eyes, but Maura couldn't help it. She was transfixed. Jane pulled her into a hug and wrapped her long arms around the doctor's middle. "I'm sorry you're so upset about it," she whispered.

Maura took a deep breath. "It's okay. It's your life, you should be able to do what you want with it." She huffed, "Besides, I'm getting the distinct impression that you do whatever you want anyway, no matter what."

"Pretty much," Jane agreed.

Maura let go first. "I think I'm done here." She picked up her suitcase and the heat lamp which was resting on her bedroom floor.

"What's the lamp for?" Jane asked, as they descended back to the waiting van. Jane gave a small wave to the compact car parked two spots behind Korsak. Someone in the front seat waved back.

"My pet tortoise. He prefers a warmer environment than humans, and Korsak said it shouldn't be a problem to have him in the house." Maura tucked her stuff in the back.

"You have a pet turtle?" Jane scoffed.

"Tortoise!" Maura corrected her, exasperatedly.

"Right, right, turtle, whatever." Jane grinned slyly.

"Tortoise." Maura repeated before they climbed back in the car.

The stop at the pet carer's place was brief, and though Jane cast the cage with the rather large animal in it a certain look, she knew better than to comment. Their last stop was at the police headquarters, so Maura could pick up her car.

She greeted Susie warmly as she entered the morgue, and together they made short work of packing up her office. Jane was there too, but she wore a glamour and had warned Maura not to look at her or speak to her while they were with other people. Still, the blonde couldn't help the occasional glance in Jane's direction as she packed up old tomes and African masks.

When they finished and the two boxes were in Maura's car, Susie took the doctor by surprise with a hug, and they swore to keep in touch, just in case Maura ever decided to come out of resignation. Maura waved goodbye and got into her car, surprised when Jane slipped in beside her.

She caught Maura's curious glance and shrugged, "I already told Korsak I'd ride back with you. To ensure your optimum safety."

Maura narrowed her eyes at the brunette, but started the engine and drove toward the Institute anyway.

"Besides," Jane added, undoing the bandages on her palms, "I've been getting Frost to give me iratzes on a regular basis. The scabs are almost healed entirely now. Couple more sessions of therapy and I'll be right back in pristine fighting condition."


	10. Days Twelve & Thirteen

By now, Maura had learned that Jane always believed she was right, even if you told her differently. Unless you could prove without a doubt that she was wrong, she'd fight you to the last, shuddering breath.

But Maura was a genius, and she just couldn't help herself, "If you push yourself too far, you'll set yourself back. You should continue to take it easy."

Jane leveled a stare in the blonde's direction, and they bickered about it for the remainder of the journey. The levity was a welcome distraction to the seriousness underlying every moment of every day with Hoyt on the loose.

What neither could predict was the fact that another package awaited Jane when they returned. This time, everyone gathered around in the kitchen when she opened the box. Collectively they drew breath as the werewolf claws spilled into Jane's bandaged palm.

Jane's jawline tightened as she dumped the claws back in the box. Everyone around Maura seemed to trade looks and so she asked, "What is it? What happened? What does it mean?"

Everyone seemed to defer to Jane. She was probably the dead middle of the group age-wise, but she commanded the team, at least how Maura saw it.

"It means that he's not just going after humans anymore. It means he's going after any of us." Jane placed her palms on the counter and leaned on them. Maura wondered how much pain that caused her. "It means that he's getting bolder and more serious."

"It means we've got to stop him. Now," Frost added, standing stiffly beside his parabatai.

Sean stepped up, "We have the extra help from Jane's detail. Let's bump up the patrol shifts, spread further out. Maybe even get the local authorities in on this."

"Yeah," Korsak interjected. "We can get two races to patrol every day, and just cycle through the days so that no one gets burned out and we keep the streets fairly safe. Any unusual activity demands hostile investigation. Everyone is armed. No one goes alone. Hourly calls from patrolling details to the Institute or else we go looking."

Sean nodded aggressively. "Let's do it, people!"

They all split off in different directions, Sean and Korsak to hold a meeting with the Downworlders, Jane and Maura upstairs to work on therapy, Angela to the kitchen because everyone would be hungry in the coming days of work, and the rest of the Shadowhunters to the training room and armoury to stock up on weapons and get in a few last minute rounds of martial combat practice.

When Maura inspected Jane's hands this time, she noticed that the brunette had been right. The scabs were almost entirely healed and an iratze was fading slowly on each palm.

She exhaled loudly and admitted rather grudgingly, "Alright. We can step it up a mark if you really want."

Jane chuckled. "It's 'step it up a notch', Maur, and you already know that I want to."

"Yes, I do," Maura agreed. "Alright then, mimic what I do and tell me when your wrists and fingers start to ache."

She led Jane through the same exercises they'd used before and it didn't take Jane as long this time, although she still struggled with a couple of the more in-depth movements. Instead of stopping there, though, Maura added more forms for Jane to push her hand through, some of them deceptively complex.

They went at it for almost three hours, repeating the entire rotation once more after the initial run through. Jane never once protested or asked Maura to stop, but even Maura's pristine, surgical hands could do with a rest after that much exertion and she knew for certain that Jane's were positively aching.

"Go find Frost and get him to give you a couple more iratzes. That should help. The rate you're going, maybe tomorrow or the day after you can attempt to train with some of your lighter weapons again." She shook her head in disbelief as Jane stood up. "Those Marks are amazing, the way they can aid you like that." She glanced up at Jane's towering form, "Do you have all of the routine Marks? Strength, agility, endurance, all of them?"

Jane nodded. "Of course." She pulled the collar of her t-shirt down a bit to reveal the intensely black marks dotting the top of her chest. "All right here, close to my heart, where they're the most effective. They're some of the first ones we get, and they stay on us forever. They're the more permanent tools of our trade."

It didn't take long for her to locate Frost with the others. He readily agreed to mark her again and then they all headed down to the kitchen after working up ravenous appetites. Jane stopped by Maura's room to make sure she joined them and couldn't help smiling indulgently when she noticed the blonde was sprawled across her bed, the Codex slung across her chest, and her eyes closed while she slept. Jane simply closed the door and told the waiting group that Maura wouldn't be joining them.

Everyone was in the kitchen, talking about the upcoming bust and the patrols they'd all be participating in. Jane did her stellar best to remain low profile and simply get in and get out without any hindrances. She'd almost succeeded, too, until she met Gabriel Dean, the faerie knight council member who'd volunteered for her protection detail.

"Jane," he greeted stoically, in true faerie fashion.

"Dean." Jane returned curtly, attempting to disengage quickly.

"Haven't seen you since I got this job," he stated rather obviously. She turned to look at him.

"And your point?"

He laughed flatly. "You haven't been avoiding me have you? You aren't still made about that little _misunderstanding_ we had ages ago, right?"

Her nostrils flared in anger, sarcasm coming to her rescue. "Oh not at all, _Gabriel_. No, I couldn't _possibly_ still be upset that you almost _killed_ me on our date!"

Frost chose that moment to intervene, "Everything alright here, guys? Having a pleasant chat?"

Dean narrowed his gaze at the interrupting Shadowhunter. "Everything's fine, Frost. You may go."

Frost's stare turned deadly. "I think I'll stay actually." He puffed out his chest a little as he faced Dean solidly.

Jane rolled her eyes despite her brimming anger. "Alright you idiots, cut it out." She turned to Dean, "Stay the hell away from me, and don't try to kill me with any more of your damn faerie food." Glancing at Frost she muttered, "I'm going upstairs and I'm bringing Maura some food. You don't need to watch him all night."

Frost snorted. "I'm watching everyone, Jane. You're my partner. We look out for each other."

She gave him a small smile, heartfelt in its thankful meaning before she left the room. When she got back upstairs, the doctor was still asleep, but she needed to eat just as much as she needed rest, and so Jane shook her gently awake.

The blonde looked confused before her eyes managed to focus on the Shadowhunter sitting beside her on the bed. "Oh! Jane, hello, what brings you here?"

Jane nodded at the bedside table where a fully loaded plate of Angela's finest stood waiting. "I thought you might be hungry. I was tempted to let you sleep, but fuel is just as important and, well, the bed will still be there in a few minutes." She chuckled softly. "The food might not be. Lots of hungry warriors downstairs."

Maura squeezed her shoulder. "Thank you very much."

A companionable silence accompanied their meal and after, even though Jane's muscles were quivering and she knew Maura probably wanted to sleep, she asked to continue their therapy anyway.

Maura agreed and they spent another two hours exercising different muscles and fingers. When they finished, Jane sighed and said, "I wonder what I'll find on our doorstep tomorrow, Maur. Something from the warlocks? Humans? Us, perhaps?" She shook her head sadly. "If I just knew where he was…"

Maura almost slapped her. "Don't you dare, Jane Rizzoli. If you are thinking what I believe you're thinking, you had better not dare even think about that."

Thoroughly rebuked, Jane threw her hands up in the air in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, Jesus."

Still eyeing her warily, Maura said, "Just go to sleep, Jane. Everything will work out."

It was obvious that Jane didn't believe her, but the slight smile told Maura that she appreciated the gesture. "Yeah, of course, Maura." She got up from Maura's bed and walked over to the door. Pulling it open, "I'll see you tomorrow." It clicked softly behind her.

Mildly perplexed, Maura leaned back on her bed and sighed. "She is deceptively complex, I do not understand her," she murmured to herself. She reached blindly for the phone on the bedside table and hit the redial button. A touch of normalcy wouldn't hurt her.

Susie answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hello Susie," Maura greeted.

"Doctor Isles!" Susie guessed happily.

"Fancy meeting for coffee tomorrow morning?" Maura asked, absently curling her hair around her finger.

"Sure, that sounds great. I have work, so the precinct café, eight o'clock?"

"That'd be lovely, Susie." Maura committed the time to her mind. "And remember: Maura."

Susie laughed and Maura glowed with pride. "Of course, Maura. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye." Their call ended.

**CHAPTER FIVE**

The day dawned to Jane finding a note on her own bedside table, a quick scrawl from Maura telling her that she was meeting an old colleague for coffee and not to worry: she'd return by nine-thirty.

There was no box on the doorstep when Jane checked before stalking into the kitchen for breakfast. The stoop was still empty when she checked after she'd eaten. The werewolves and warlocks were on patrol for the day, and the vampires were off in the basement, sleeping. The faeries tended to band together and stick to themselves in the library, something about being around knowledge which made them feel more at home.


	11. Day Fourteen

The message was waiting for her in her room, leaning up against the clock on her bureau.

_She's so pretty, Janie. I can see why you like her._

_Why you care about her._

_Have you hugged her yet, Janie?_

_Inhaled the scent of her shampoo?_

_I know you haven't done anything with her yet._

_But you want to._

_Can't do that if she's not alive, now can you?_

_You know where I am._

_Come talk to me, alone and I'll let her live._

_I'll be waiting, Janie._

_Make sure you use your lavender soap._

It crumpled in her fingers. She scanned her hands, the scabs had finally vanished. She clenched her fists and for the first time in days, there was no pain to accompany the action. She glanced at the clock. _9:42_.

She sprinted quietly down the hall to the weapons room and loaded herself up. She knew where all of her detail should be. She knew where he was.

Their place, their basement. She should have thought about it before, should've prevented it. She placed as many weapons on her gear clad body as she could, and then she went to Maura's bedroom window. It was the only one with a wide enough ledge for her to step out on.

She descended the wall like a spider, muscles flexing with the exertion, but the adrenaline was pumping through her veins to her rescue now and nothing would stop her from rescuing her friend. From rescuing the best friend she'd ever had, aside from Frost.

As soon as she touched the ground, she ran to the trees, using the greenery for cover. Her glamour kept her invisible and she made quick progress along the streets of Boston, searching out that one lonely building.

She threw caution to the wind. He already knew she was coming, already knew she'd follow his instructions to the letter if only to prevent harm from befalling Maura. She was playing right into his hands, but what else could she do?

Silence was for suckers. She kicked the door open, loudly, and let the sound echo through the cavernous interior. The stairs were close to silent at best when she'd last descended them, but she stomped down them heavily this time around.

The first thing she saw was a pair of hazel eyes peeking through a curtain of blonde hair.

Maura fought against her restraints the moment she saw Jane come down those stairs. She tried to get the words out through her gag, tried to scream at her to run, to save herself, that she could take care of herself, but the words wouldn't form past the cloth.

"Janie, how wonderful of you to join us!" Hoyt called cheerfully, and Jane spun at the voice, locating his relaxed form in an armchair in a corner of the room. "I was just saying to the lovely doctor, how great it would be if you didn't keep up waiting and I am so _happy_ to say you haven't disappointed us."

"Let her go!" Jane snarled, unsheathing a seraph blade from the scabbards at her back, and pointing it at him.

He clucked his tongue. "Now, now, now, Janie, is that anyway to treat your humble host? I invited you into my space, and you repay me by coming armed?" He sighed. "I suppose I should've been more specific in the letter I left you." He got up from his chair and slowly walked over to the captive blonde. "Alas, we'll have to do things the hard way."

Gesturing to the table at Jane's left, he instructed, "Please unarm yourself and place all your lovely weapons on that table."

Jane didn't move.

Hoyt shook his head, sighing heavily. "Must we really do this Jane?" He pulled a scalpel from behind his back and leaned over Maura, placing the blade against her neck. A ribbon of blood started dripping down her skin.

Jane threw her weapons on the table, first her swords, and then her whip and daggers. "Get away from her."

Hoyt chuckled, but stepped away.

"Now let her go," Jane demanded.

He seemed to contemplate the thought for a moment, before grinning widely. "No, I don't think I will. She's useful; helps keep you in line."

She trembled with anger, "You said-"

The grin dropped as quickly as lightning could flash, and he corrected her sternly, "I only said she'd live." He adopted the smile again and tossed her a pair of plastic cuffs. "Put them on and sit on the table over here."

Seething, Jane did as she was told, hopping up onto the cold metallic table that was about six feet away from Maura and Hoyt. Thoughts trilled through her brain as she tried to figure out a way to get them out alive.

"Stop trying to think your way out of here, Janie, you know I'm not going to let you escape this time." Hoyt tsked. "Meet my business partner instead, John Stork."

A tall, Marine-cut man emerged from the shadows from behind the stairwell. "Sir, we'd better get moving. Eventually they will notice that both of them have disappeared."

Hoyt nodded indulgently then turned back to Jane. "You'll have to excuse my friend, I picked him up from the army and now he thinks I'm his senior officer. I've tried to get him to call me Charles, but to no avail."

"Sir," the soldier insisted.

Hoyt sighed. "Yes, yes, alright. Tase her and let's get her in the van."

Jane didn't even see the darts before they embedded themselves in her clothing and washed her through with volts of 26-Watt electricity. Her muscles contracted and she couldn't move when 'John Stark' heaved her over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs.

The last view Jane had of the basement was of Maura still tied to the chair, a tear leaking out the corner of her eye as Hoyt whispered something in her ear. Their eye contact never broke until Jane was out of the basement. She fought to move, but she was paralysed completely.

Stark tossed her in the back of a van with a dull thunk.

"Careful!" Hoyt reprimanded harshly, slapping the back of his head.

"Sorry, sir."

"Get in and tie her legs together."

The van started up and moved along the streets; Jane couldn't tell where they were headed. She vaguely felt Stark immobilising her legs with what sounded like plastic cuffs.

It felt like hours, and they rarely slowed down. It must've been the highway they were on, but Jane had no idea where they were going to. Along the way, she regained the use of her muscles, but with her bindings so tight into her skin, there wasn't much more she could do that roll around.

Finally, Stark hammered on the partition between the back of the van and the cabin and the vehicle rolled to a stop. Stark jumped out of the back, and another noise told her that Hoyt had also exited the vehicle. The door to the back of the van closed almost entirely and she could hear them talking quietly. Using her knees and her bound hand, she searched in the darkness for a weapon, anything she could use to defend herself.

She could hear gravel crunching underneath their boots, the sound indicating they were still far enough away from the door.

She dug into a bag, and found a bottle. In the light from the moon coming in through the crack in the door, she could just make out the label: 'In Case of Emergency'. _Well,_ she thought, _that sounds promising._ Their footsteps got closer and she tucked the bottle underneath her body, pushing the bag away from herself just as the door opened.

"Janie," Hoyt called. He poked her foot. "Time to wake up now, sweetheart." The van shifted as he stepped inside. She felt him move closer and then kneel own beside her. "Come on now." His voice was right by her ear.

She flipped over and threw the bottle in his face, happy when the spell inside attached to his skin and his face started to melt amidst the flying magical sparks. He dropped the seraph blade he'd stolen from her cache upon the table and let out an anguished scream as he tried to move the spell from his face.

Stark dove into the back of the van, a gun leaping into his hand from his side holster. Jane grabbed the seraph blade with both of her hands awkwardly, whispered its name, and knocked the gun from his grasp. He charged at her, sending the seraph blade flying and forcing its light to sputter out. They grappled, rolling around in the floor of the van, while Hoyt jumped outside, and rubbed his face in the ground, trying to get the magic off of his face.

Jane's fingers grazed the gun and in the next movement, she'd taken hold of it and fired a round at the soldier. He fell limply on top of her, making her use all of her strength to move his crushing weight off of her chest. She took up the seraph blade again, tossing the gun to the side, and cut the restraints off of her limbs.

Hoyt was still sprawled on the ground when she joined him out in the open. The spell had almost worn off, leaving the right side of his face fully disfigured. She placed one foot against his neck, so he couldn't choke out another spell, and placed the other on his wrists.

She drove downward with the blade, through both of his palms at once.

"Now we match," she declared, wiping a bead of blood from her temple. A swift kick to the bass of his skull knocked him unconscious. She pulled the cell phone the back of her utility belt and called the Institute.

"Jane, where the hell are you?" Frost's voice asked in lieu of a greeting.


	12. Day Fifteen

"No idea. Maura's prisoner at the building we found Hoyt in last time. As for me, you'll have to trace the GPS, and step on it. I don't know how long he's going to stay asleep."

"On it. Sit tight, Jane, we're on our way."

She leaned against the van, and waited.

**A/N: To the guest reviewer: Maura is way stronger than she looks. And she's been carrying Bass around for ages due to the stairs in her house. Also, all of the Shadowhunters are trained warriors; they're very strong. It's not as difficult to believe as you might think.**

**To the other guest reviewer: Shadowhunters are not immortal. In fact, due to their chosen lifestyle, they usually die prematurely. In this story, Jane is about twenty-three, and Maura is slightly older at twenty-seven. I realise that some people may not find Maura's age accurate for her accomplishments, but I am using the fact that she is a genius to my advantage here. For instance, Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds was twenty-four with three doctorates.**

**Specifically, Dean is a faerie knight. He's very aloof and dedicated to his work, as the faerie knights in that universe seem to be.**

**Jem (and Tessa), is actually from the Shadowhunter universe as well, but I didn't borrow him from the Mortal Instruments series (City of Bones, etc.), I borrowed him from the 'prequels' – the Infernal Devices. He's a really cool character in there, but sadly I probably won't be able to delve into his background too much. I hope this helped, thanks for sticking with me!**

**CHAPTER SIX**

As soon as Frost got off the phone, the team was on the move. They split seamlessly, Giovanni, Jem, Tessa, and Frankie going after Maura, while Korsak, Cavanaugh, Angela, and Frost took off after Jane.

They entered the abandoned building on high alert, expecting demons to pop out from every dark corner.

"I think everything's gone, guys," Giovanni called out from his position at point. Their seraph blades glowed as they descended the stairs. Muffled cries drew their attention to Maura, who was bound and gagged in a chair. Gio and Frankie dashed forward to free her, while Jem and Tessa looked around, trying to figure out what Hoyt was up to.

"As soon as you free her, take her to the hospital. Straight through the Emergency room. Then take her belongings back to her apartment, take her car to the hospital, and ask a nurse to give her the keys when she's released." Jem instructed. "Then come back here and pick Tess and myself up. We'll do whatever digging we can around here, find out anything we can, and then we'll meet back up with the others and Jane."

Frankie nodded determinedly, as he finished untying the ropes around Maura's ankles.

"No, don't leave me there, where's Jane, let me stay, Frankie, please don't make me, Frankie…" Maura whispered, her voice hoarse.

"I'm sorry, Maura, but they're right. You're better off. Now come on, let's get you cleaned up and looked at." Frankie said softly, letting her lean on him as they hobbled up the steps. Giovanni went ahead and held open doors, and when they got to the van, he gently buckled the seatbelt over her.

Frankie sat in the back with her while Giovanni sped to the hospital. They took her in the Emergency entrance, wearing glamours so that they looked like paramedics. They handed her off with difficulty, her hands were shaking but hanging on to the edges of their clothing.

They sedated her, and she went easily on a gurney. Giovanni was talking to an orderly, helping to fill in what he could about her for their records. Frankie was holding her hand as they wheeled her into an examination room. He kissed the back of her hand when they asked him to leave, and watched her go, brow furrowed in worry.

They headed back to the Institute and packed up her things. The entire time, Frankie was trying to ignore the guilt building up in his gut. It wasn't right to force this choice on Maura, to kick her out even if it was only to protect her. But she did need protection, and she wouldn't find that if she stayed in their world, in their home.

Frankie drove the van while Giovanni took Maura's Prius. It only took them half an hour to take all the boxes upstairs, and then they locked up, and drove to the hospital.

Giovanni slipped the car keys into an envelope and handed it off to the orderly he'd chatted to earlier, asking her to give the package to Maura upon her release. Then he left and rejoined Frankie in the car.

They picked up Tessa and Jem, who hadn't found anything of use even after hours spent combing over every inch of the place.

Meanwhile, it took Frost fifteen minutes to pinpoint Jane's exact whereabouts, and another hour for them to make it to the scene. When they pulled up, Jane slowly got up from her position against the side of the van and crossed her arms. Angela and Frost sped straight to her, the former suffocating the Shadowhunter with motherly concern, the latter hanging back as he knew his parabatai would prefer. Sean and Korsak looked over the body in the back, and the motionless body of Hoyt on the ground.

Jane didn't say a word, simply shrugged off her mother and got into the van, claiming her usual seat in the middle. Frost threw Angela a warning glance, telling her to stay back for now, and then he joined her, sitting beside her, but not too close.

Korsak checked the body over, but without a pulse there was nothing to do with it except leave it there.

Sean, on the other hand, was incapacitating Hoyt, tying him into a curled up ball. With Korsak's help, he pulled a bag over her head and they tossed him in the back of the van.

The journey back to the Institute was quiet and brimming with uncertainty. What do they do, what shouldn't they do? What would set her off? What does she need, what would help her?

Without the answers, they simply stayed silent, the radio off. The only disturbances were the occasional bounces of Hoyt's body with the bumps in the road.

It was only when they returned that Jane finally spoke, and it wasn't to anyone who'd picked her up from the side of the road.

"Where is she? Is she okay?" Jane demanded as soon as Frankie and Giovanni were in her sights.

They traded a look as only parabatai can do, before Giovanni answered her, "We took her to the hospital so she could get looked at. She was covered in bruises and gashes, and we don't really know what to do about that with mundanes. Iratzes aren't gonna work on her."

Jane snorted derisively, "We don't even know if she is a mundane. We have no evidence either way, and it wouldn't be the first time an anomaly had appeared," she looked at Tessa meaningfully.

"She was fine though, Jane, and she should be fine when she's released as well, we have it all planned out." Frankie interjected.

Jane stopped dead in her tracks. "Planned out how?" she asked through tight lips.

"I – uh – we moved her stuff back to her place. Left the keys to her car for her to collect when she's released-"

"You what?" Her tone was deadly. "Do you have any idea how she's going to feel? She's not going to take that as a blessing in disguise, she's going to think that we did this to her, turned her life completely upside down, and then kicked her to the curb when she needed us most. She's going to be messed up and asking questions and for the love of God, when she shows up here, she's going to be a fricking hurricane."

Frankie and Giovanni traded looks with Tessa and Jem. "It was our fault," Jem admitted. "We told them to do so. We were hoping to force her into safety." He sighed. "We should've known better, being around as long as we have."

Jane turned to Cavanaugh. "Give me the keys." Her voice left no room for argument. He handed them over warily, dropping them into her palms.

"Jane! Where are you going? You should stay and rest!" Angela called after her daughter's retreating back. She turned to Frost, distraught, but he was already following his partner out the door.

Their drive to the hospital was uneventful, but oh, Jane Rizzoli was in fine form when she entered that Emergency room. She quickly caught a hold of a passing person with a clipboard and demanded the status of Maura Isles. The poor unsuspecting bloke was trying to redirect her to the desk, but she wasn't taking no for an answer. Finally he caved.

"Just give me one minute to find the chart, okay? Who are you anyway? Power of attorney? Family?"

"Family," Jane answered without a second thought. "Sister and brother." She caught his questioning glance at Frost. She rolled her eyes. "He's adopted, now go, please!"

He returned a minute later. "Room 405, they had to sedate her so they're just waiting for her to wake up now. You can go on in, there's nothing critical."

Jane thanked him, but was already sprinting away down the hall, Frost hot on her heels. They burst into the room rather obnoxiously, but Maura was the only body in a bed.

"Shit," Jane breathed, taking in the full extent of the damage Hoyt had inflicted. She pulled one of the hard plastic chairs right up beside Maura's bed, and sat heavily in it. Automatically she reached for her hand and held it, looking like she may never let go.


	13. Day Sixteen

Frost coughed awkwardly at the scene, and made excuses about going to get coffee which he was sure went unnoticed by Jane.

Jane stared, personally cataloguing every wound she could visibly locate. She didn't hear the door open and close softly; it wasn't until the intruder was right beside her that Jane jumped and registered the new presence.

"It's okay, I'm a nurse." The woman tried to placate the jumpy Shadowhunter. "Name's Amelia and you're new here." She smiled. "I've had Miss Isles' room on my rounds since she arrived a while ago. You're the only visitor. And frankly, you're late." She studied the machines at Maura's side and made some notes.

"I uh," Jane swallowed thickly. "I was minorly detained. I got here as quick as I could."

"Well, she should be waking up anytime now. Then she'll be good to go as soon as she's ready once you fill out these papers." Amelia handed Jane a small sheaf of paperwork. She yanked a pen out of her pocket and tossed it on the stack. She grinned, "Have fun!" and disappeared out the door.

Jane drew the papers toward her, and keeping one hand firmly intertwined with Maura's, she did what she could to fill in the many blanks. There were some things she didn't know; like her social security number, her phone number, or her power of attorney or next of kin.

But she did know her name, her address, and a whole bunch of things that the paper didn't ask for. For instance, Maura slept curled up on her side on the right side of the bed and she didn't drink coffee generally, opting for tea instead. She was very health conscious and more often than not, had a plate full of vegetables which rivaled Jane's plate of pasta and meat.

She didn't always understand when someone was making a joke, and she'd stand there blankly with the most adorable look of cluelessness on her face.

A small squeeze of her hand drew Jane out of her reverie. She looked up hastily and noticed Maura's unfocused eyes on her.

"Maura!" Jane leapt up from her seat. "Are you feeling okay? Do I need to get you anything? How are you injuries? I'm so sorry you got hurt because of me, I completely understand if you want me to leave. I can just leave these papers here and-"

"Jane." Maura croaked weakly.

Jane stopped moving entirely.

"Shut up," the blonde commanded hoarsely, smiling. Jane nodded, acquiescing to the demand. "And sit back down." The brunette resumed her seat quickly.

"Now, tell me how you escaped."

And Jane did, leaving out the more gruesome details, and downplaying her gallantries.

"So you have him then, again?"

Jane nodded.

"Alright," Maura said and then with great effort heaved her legs out of the bed. "The sedative has mostly worn off, I should be able to walk and function without too many drawbacks." She swayed as she stood and blushed. "However, I may require your assistance with dressing. Leaving the hospital in this gown wouldn't be the best idea I've ever had."

Jane located Maura's torn clothes on the other chair by her bed and handed them to the blonde. Together they awkwardly managed to get the jeans on without Maura falling over, but Jane begged off from helping the doctor with her shirt, instead using the time to ask her for the rest of the answers required to finish filling out the discharge papers.

Frost came back just as Maura's shirt settled around her waist. "Oh Jesus, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were changing, I'll come back later," he said, turning back abruptly for the door.

"Barry!" Maura called hastily, "Don't leave, I'm done. I can't believe you're here, too!" She smiled dazedly, and Jane couldn't help but think that the sedative definitely hadn't yet run its course.

Frost handed the two coffee cups he was clutching to Jane as he met Maura's outstretched arms in an enthusiastic hug. "Of course I'm here, you don't think I'd let her come all by herself, did you?" he chuckled, squeezing her once before letting go. "Didn't know you'd be awake, so I didn't bring you any tea, my bad," Frost shrugged, taking his coffee cup back from Jane, who'd tasted his first and turned her nose up at the lack of sugar and creamer.

"All ready to go then?" he asked as he watched Maura struggle into her shoes. He met Jane's gaze and nodded toward the blonde not so subtly. Jane huffed but bent down to assist the doctor as he suggested.

"Thanks, Jane," Maura said brightly. Jane gripped her upper arm to help her from stumbling. "Barold, if you wouldn't mind grabbing the papers by the bed, we can blow this henhouse."

Jane snorted. "It's 'fly the coop', Maur, not 'blow the henhouse'." Frost chuckled behind them as they made their way out of the hospital room and down the hall to the nurses' station.

They handed over the paperwork and were sent on their fairly quickly. The attendant handed them an envelope as they left, and Jane opened it on Maura's behalf, the key to the Prius spilling out into her hand.

That made Jane stop. "Right, so, um, it's completely understandable if you don't want to come back to the Institute with us. In fact, Giovanni and Frankie already took all of your stuff back to your apartment so that you wouldn't have to go back at all. I'm happy to take you there, leave you there, and never interrupt your normal life ever again," Jane said quietly, ignoring the fallen look to Maura's features.

"No, please, I'd like to stay if you'd let me. I'd – well, I'd feel safer if you were around and let's not lie-"

"You can't lie, Maura," Jane interrupted, but quickly quieted at the glare she received for her input.

"-we'll probably both suffer from night terrors given the events of the past day, and it will probably ease both of our psyches if the other is within an easily reachable distance. Thus we can reassure ourselves of the other's being alive. I'm certain you'll find it as calming as I no doubt will tonight."

Jane and Frost shared a look. "I don't get nightmares, Maura," Jane denied stoically.

Maura simply gave her a stare full of disbelief which clearly stated she wasn't buying it. "We'll see about that when you come into my room tonight, Jane," Maura declared.

"Oh snap," Frost said, laughing. "She just threw down the gauntlet, Rizzoli. You just gonna take it standing up?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Let's just go get her stuff, Frost."

"Yeah, yeah," Frost rolled his eyes at his parabatai's lack of answer. "You drive her in her car, I'll meet you back at the Institute and answer all of the annoying questions so that the two of you aren't swarmed when you make it back."

Jane nodded gratefully in appreciation. "Thanks, man."

"No problem," Frost shook his head, then smirked. "But you're going to owe me big time, partner."

"Sure, _Barold_, I'll see you later." Jane walked away, leaving Frost at the hospital entrance. She escorted Maura to the car and gently helped her into the passenger seat.

"So they took all of my stuff back?" Maura asked, staring out the window as Jane buckled her seatbelt and left the parking lot.

"Yeah, sorry about that, they were just following orders. I'm sure that if they know what's good for them, they didn't do any poking around or give any unnecessary and unwanted attention to your personal effects."

"Hmm," Maura hummed noncommittally. She reached across the centre console and placed her hand lightly on the brunette's knee. Jane immediately tensed up at the contact, but relaxed when Maura explained, "the last time I saw you, you were being escorted to what I was sure would be your tortured death. This helps me reconcile reality with the worst my imagination could conjure up."

Jane left it at that and the remainder of their journey was fairly silent, until Maura turned on the stereo and classical music filtered through the car's speaker system.

Jane tossed her a sidelong glance, her trademark 'Really?' clearly apparent in it. Maura simply smiled and shrugged it off.

Jane instructed Maura to stay in the car while she loaded up the back once again with Maura's possessions, thankfully still in the boxes. It made it easier to tell what she was supposed to bring back down.

It was on her final trip down to the car that she finally registered the pain in her side. Maura noticed it as well, as it manifested in the form of a limp that the Shadowhunter had not had mere moments before.

"You're hurt, what happened?" Maura demanded as Jane sat back heavily in the car.

"Nothing, nothing, I'm fine." Jane gasped, feeling for the key and turning the ignition.

Maura turned around in her chair and leveled a very stern stare. "Lift up your shirt."

Jane groaned, "Again, haven't we been over this? One little iratze and I'll be completely fine, stop fussing."

But Maura wasn't budging on the subject. "Shirt. Now."

Jane sighed and complied, grabbing the corner of her dusty, torn shirt, and lifting it slightly. "You know, there are probably a dozen easier ways to get me to take my shirt off…"

"Oh my God," Maura gasped, reaching for Jane's skin.

The contact sent new waves of pain radiating through the brunette's skin and she tried to push the blonde away. "Ow, stop that, I'll be fine once I'm back, just leave it be."

The skin was purple and bruised when Jane glanced down and fury swelled up in her chest. Those fuckers had attacked her while she'd been tasered. But how did she not notice? Had she fallen unconscious without realizing it?

"You probably have a couple of cracked, if not broken bones, Jane. You need to get them looked at by a medical professional!"


	14. Days Seventeen & Eighteen

**To the guest reviewer: I use days for chapters because this is my National Novel Writing Month novel, and I'm supposed to write 1,667 words per day to meet the wordcount goal of 50,000 by the end of November. Sorting the chapter by day lets me keep easier track of how I'm doing in my pursuits. But by all means, it could be used as a timeline indicator for the story. I plan on continuing to include show aspects but changed so that they adhere to my little AU universe. Tessa isn't my character, she's an original member of the Infernal Devices trilogy (of the original, Cassandra Clare designed Shadowhunter universe) just as Jem is. I haven't included all of their conversation, so they have gotten to know each other extremely well, particularly during their therapy sessions. I have no plans as of this moment to introduce a supernatural power aspect to their relationship, or any aspect of the story. Superpowers in addition to the power of runes and warlocks seems like a bit much, in my humble opinion. **

**By all means, continue to ask me questions, I love questions.**

Maura insisted, staring at the Shadowhunter earnestly.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Well, then that's why I have you, _Doctor_ Isles. You can look me over later, but I'm telling you, I'll be fine with an iratze or two. Frost'll have my back."

"That is not the point, Jane, and I don't have the equipment for it!"

"What possible equipment could you need? Poke around a bit and you'll figure it out soon enough by how much agony I'm in, yeah?"

Maura was completely appalled. "No, an x-ray machine, and perhaps at this point an MRI and a CAT scan because you must've hit your head to be acting so ridiculous."

Jane put the car in gear and drove off. "Just stop, Maura. I'm fine. I'm not going to any of your mundane hospital type places – we just left one for you – and I am not terribly keen to return. Besides, I'm a Shadowhunter, they're gonna want to like dissect me or something!"

"Jane, you're completely overreacting. You have a glamour, it'll be fine." Maura reasoned.

"No." Jane stated decisively. "I'm not going and you can't make me. The best I'll give you is the opportunity to inspect my injury yourself when we're back, but there is no way in hell you're getting me looked at by a mundane.

Maura didn't answer, choosing instead to sink into her seat and sulk silently.

They pulled up to the Institute and Jane parked the Prius in a grove of trees so that no one would be able to see it from the road. Frost walked out to the car from the stoop, ready to help carry back in Maura's belongings.

He was about to make a cheery joke about how long it took the two women to get here, but the cutting atmosphere surrounding them stopped him short.

"Alright, Jane, what did you do to get the doctor so pissed at you?" Frost sighed as Jane handed him a box.

"Hey!" The brunette said indignantly. "Why do you assume it's my fault? Maybe she was being ridiculous and overbearing!"

"I simply told her that she should get looked at by a doctor," Maura ignored Jane's lashing out.

Frost raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a doctor?"

Jane whooped in victory. "See!"

"I don't work on live people. I'm a medical examiner. I determine how people die, I don't fix them up while their hearts are still beating!" Maura insisted hotly.

Frost could tell Jane was working up to a good argument and jumped to put a stop to it. He put the box on the ground quickly and then placed a hand on a shoulder of each woman. "Ladies, calm down. You're both alive, so just enjoy that for a minute and stop the bickering. You're like an old married couple sometimes, I swear." He shook his head and picked the box back up, escaping inside before he could be dragged into their grade school behaviour.

The two looked sourly at each other for another minute before the heat steadily dropped from the gazes and they looked vaguely remorseful at their conduct.

"Sorry," Jane muttered and Maura quickly returned the sentiment, even leaning in for a hug.

Jane took a quick step back. "Uh, I'm not really a hugger sorry. And there's the whole huge ass bruise on my side thing too so…"

"Oh, right," Maura dropped her arms. She picked up a box as Jane readjusted her grip on the one she was carrying. They left it at that and entered the Institute together, Jane's cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink as she recalled the last time she'd been here, mere hours ago.

With a sinking feeling in her chest, Jane led the way into the Institute. Despite Frost's assurances that he would take care of the majority of the questions her hasty departure would have raised, she was still wary of an inquisition from her mother. That woman was never satisfied with the second hand word of others when it came to her children.

Sure enough, the matriarch was waiting with her hip coked and elbows crossed at the foot of the staircase.

She said only two words, "Explain. Now."

Jane sighed and looked imploringly at Frost. He shrugged and offered a sheepish grin. "Ma, it can wait five minutes while I take this upstairs. Besides, I hear Frost already told you what happened, you don't need me to say it all again."

"Five minutes, young lady, and then you will tell me all about it. Again." Angela disappeared into the kitchen.

"You know it's just because she loves you, right?" Frost asked, slinging an arm carelessly across Jane's shoulders.

She shrugged him off. "Yeah, yeah." She turned back to Maura, "C'mon, Maur, let's go put this stuff back in your room."

Maura readily complied and soon enough they'd been up and down the stairs and it was time for Jane to face her mother. "It'll be fine," Maura assured her, patting her arm soothingly.

"Sure, sure," Jane muttered.

"And after, I'll take a look at your injury and we can talk Barry into giving you a couple of iratzes," Maura concluded cheerfully.

"Oh yay," Jane said, "the good times just keep rolling."

Maura tilted her head at Jane's tone. "Sarcasm?"

"No… not at all," Jane responded, laying it on thickly.

Maura glared at her. "Not funny, Jane."

Jane tried to cover a laugh. "It totally was."

"Go face the shooting squad, Jane," Maura said, rolling her eyes.

"I see you're picking up some of my bad habits," Jane commented. "And it's 'firing squad', not shooting squad."

"Right," Maura nodded, taking the correction with her usual grace.

Jane slipped through the door, leaving Maura and Frost waiting on the other side. No one else was in the kitchen, it was just her and her mother, staring at each other from opposite ends of the room.

"Everything from the past forty-eight hours, Jane. Go." Angela commanded, leaning heavily against the kitchen island, arms crossed and face grim.

So Jane sighed and gave her the recap, glossing over the more painful things, lingering on the things she thought her Ma might soften at. Angela did better than Jane expected at keeping silent and not interrupting the retelling of the tale.

It wasn't until Jane finished her quick summary of their time at the hospital that Angela interjected. "But why did you rush out of here like a bat out of hell? She was fine in one of her mundane hospitals, well looked after, I'm sure."

Jane glared at her mother. "We took her in, we brought her into this messed up world, and then we just tossed her aside with no explanation, no information, and no gratitude. Ma that may have worked for the Shadowhunters of the past, but it fucked them over more often than not. I was not going to make that same mistake with Maura, Ma. One day we're going to need the mundanes on our side and that isn't going to happen if anyone we let catch a glimpse get thrown aside like yesterday's trash. We won't be a secret forever, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather have seven billion allies than seven billion more enemies, alright?"

Angela's glare had strengthened during her tirade, but it faded toward the end. "You're too smart for your own good, Janie," she stated, moving forward toward her daughter.

Jane froze in place. "Do not call me that," she hissed. Her eyes flashed and then she was gone, sprinting back through the doorway to meet her friends in the hall.

"Jane? What's up? How'd it go? You weren't even in there for very long. I thought Maura and I were going to have to take up Patty Cake or something like that," Frost chuckled before noticing Jane's stiff posture.

"Jane?" Maura asked softly, moving toward her carefully.

Jane shuddered and shook her head. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Minor flashback, it's okay."

Maura and Frost exchanged worried looks. "You've been going non-stop, Jane, it's probably time for you to go to bed. Get some rest."

They escorted her upstairs and watched as she simply crashed onto her bed, clothes and all. Off to the side, Maura told Frost about the injury and held the shirt off of the wound while Frost drew the rune.

Just as they were about to slip quietly out of the door, Jane's voice murmured from her bed, dripping with the grogginess of sleep. "Maura."

The doctor stopped cold in her tracks, giving Frost a questioning stare. He simply shrugged and pushed her back into the room, closing the door behind him as he left.

"Maura." Her voice was a whimper as her body writhed on the comforter.

Maura walked back to Jane's bedside, heart breaking at the sight before her.

"Please stay, don't go."

Maura nodded, tears starting at the corners of her eyes. She sat down carefully beside Jane on the bed and held her hand as the brunette slept and dreamed, offering comfort when it looked like the visions in her mind were taking a turn for the dark.

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Jane woke slowly, the blurry edges of her consciousness receding at a painstaking pace. Eventually she grew aware of an arm wrapped around her waist and the steady pace of puffs of air being exhaled into her neck. She froze and with great effort attempted to recall whom she'd invited back to bed with her last night, but for the life of her she couldn't remember extending the invitation to anyone.

The person yawned and rolled, removing their hand from Jane's hips. Taking the opportunity, Jane turned over to discover that her mysterious bed mate was Maura, who was lying fully on top of the covers, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Morning," Jane husked carefully, looking at the blonde with a questioning stare.

Maura startled and almost fell off the bed. "Oh, hello, Jane. I didn't think you'd be up yet," she smiled.

Jane gestured at their current position. "Care to explain?"

Maura's blank look was almost priceless.

Jane sighed and reiterated, "What're you doing in my bed?"

"Oh," Maura said quietly, facial expression dropping like lead. "You don't remember? That's okay. I'll just-" she moved to get up and Jane's hand shot out, wrapping around her wrist firmly.

"No. Just because I don't remember doesn't mean I don't want to know." Jane explained.

Maura sat back down on the bed, albeit farther from Jane than she'd been before. "You asked me to stay. I think you were in the middle of a nightmare, but Frost was here when you did it and he encouraged me to do as you asked."

"Huh," Jane commented, removing her hand and shifting to lie on her back. "Interesting."

Before Maura could ask what precisely was interesting, someone knocked on Jane's door and Frankie called out, "Jane! Rondo's here for you!"

She jumped up and tore open her drawers for decent clothes, not caring that Maura was in the room before starting to strip and change.

For her part, once she realised the brunette was going to just not care that she was in the room, Maura burrowed her face into a pillow. Eventually. She was a bit sidetracked by Jane's abs and legs, but not enough for Jane to notice. Had she been questioned about her lingering attention, she could simply state she was checking on the progress of Jane's healing, which was spectacular. You could barely see the fading subdural hematoma, at least not in the faint light of the sun through the drapes.

"Come on, Maur!" Jane called as she dashed out the door. Maura could hear her thunder down the steps and all she could wonder was who this 'Rondo' person was and why they were so important. Boyfriend? Secret lover?

She headed back to her own room to change, locating the box marked 'clothing' with ease before joining them downstairs.

Jane and a tall, black man were huddled together in a corner of the kitchen and Jane gestured for Maura to join them. First though, Maura said hello to the mass of people huddling together on the opposite side of the room. She also took a minute to talk to Frost, who explained that Rondo was one of the good guys. An old faerie knight who'd kind of 'retired' and now he roamed the streets of Boston, lending a hand where he could and assisting the Shadowhunters (mainly Jane) in keeping the streets safe.

When she approached, they were in the middle of discussing a slew of murders which were, according to Rondo, vampire attacks.

"Are you sure?" Jane asked, voice and face completely business like.

"Damn straight, Vanilla! I got into the morgue and saw the bodies myself, if it isn't a vampire, then I swear to God I will give you my personal sword and you can behead me yourself," Rondo insisted hotly. Maura shifted closer to Jane, who reached over and squeezed her hand without even acknowledging she'd done it. Rondo raised an eyebrow and gave Maura the once over, up and down. "Mrs. Vanilla," he inclined his head before turning back to Jane.

Maura opened her mouth to ask what exactly that meant, but Jane was already there. "Why're you calling her Mrs. Vanilla? We aren't married Rondo."

Rondo chuckled. "Oh. No worries, Vanilla. I know you aren't." He paused and smiled knowingly at the two of them. "But you will be." Before either could respond, he'd moved on, saying, "Now, are you going to go track down this son of a bitch, or am I going to have to find another way to get rid of the problem?"

Choosing to gloss over the marriage announcement, Jane assured him that they would take care of it. He nodded in reply and then left so quickly Maura's head almost spun.

"Alright, when is Hoyt being moved?" Jane asked the crowd at large.

Sean responded, "Tonight." She nodded.

"Okay, here's the plan. Once we get one criminal off of our property, we hit up the local hangouts and try to find an ID on this guy. Rondo says he's been creative, hiding some of his kills within statues, or framing mundanes for his work so that the police around here think they're doing some good." She looked around and did some mental math. "Teams of two would probably work best. Ma, you'll hold down the fort?" Angela nodded, but Jane seemed to predict her answer and moved on without acknowledgement. "Maura, you can come with Frost and me. I'll get you lot assigned to the different bars and we'll head out as soon as Hoyt's been shipped off."

Everyone murmured or nodded their assent and went off to sleep some more or sharpen weapons or whatever it is that Shadowhunters do in their free time.

Jane approached Cavanaugh. "How long do they plan on keeping him before the execution?"

Sean pursed his lips in thought and then shrugged. "Could be anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks; who knows with these pencil pushers."

Jane sighed and nodded, then excused herself, taking Maura's hand and dragging the blonde along with her.

Once they were out of earshot, Jane slowed down. "I gotta make a plan, figure out where the most likely Downworlder hangouts would be and stuff." She looked thoughtful for a moment before turning to Maura. "Feel like a little research?"

"Hang on, what'd he mean by we'd be married?" Maura asked, refusing to budge another inch before satisfying at least some of her curiousity.

Jane sighed. "Rondo used to work for the Seelie Queen, queen of the faeries, and he says she taught him how to read the future." She snorted. "It's complete bullshit, of course, but ever since, he'd been trying to predict our futures and now he's under the impression that we'll get married. Usually I'd just say he's crazy, but now he's certainly out of his ever loving mind."

Maura's eyebrows drew together. "Is the thought of marrying me so bad?" she asked, slightly crushed that not even her friend could find her the least bit enticing.

Sensing that this was a delicate subject, Jane chose her next words very carefully. "No, Maur, I'm sure you'd be lovely. It's just that," she lowered her voice, "Shadowhunters have very, very strict views on sexuality and though you mundanes are making headway against it and opening yourselves up to the possibilities, we remain concrete and solid in our belief that same-sex relationships are the work of the devil." Jane shrugged. "One of my old pals, Alec, got into a gay relationship with a highly renowned warlock up in New York. His family basically deserted him, except for his sister and his adopted brother."

"That's awful," Maura said sympathetically.

"Yeah," Jane agreed. "He's a great guy, real catch. And though Magnus has his quirks, he's a pretty decent guy himself." Jane looked up to meet Maura's eyes. "Personally, I'm of the belief that anyone can do anything they want, because who they happen on fall in love with has no bearing whatsoever on me. If they're happy, then I'm happy for them."

Maura smiled, genuinely pleased at Jane's answer. "I think that's an excellent view of the world."

Jane smirked. "Oh yeah, my way of thinking brings all the boys to the yard," she said and promptly cracked up. Maura stared at her blankly. "Seriously, Maur?" She shook her head, but continued smiling. "We need to work on your pop culture references."

She gestured upstairs. "Let's go hit the books. We need a plan of action."

…

Hours later, Jane and Maura emerged from the library after researching the most popular Downworlder hangouts in the city. They narrowed it down to four, which was a perfect number as Jem and Tessa had poked their heads in earlier to say they'd be happy to help in the search for the vampire, and that gave them four teams exactly.

They searched out the other teams and told them where they'd be heading before locating Frost and making a more detailed game plan for themselves. The plan they decided on involved cleaning up really nicely to blend in with the crowd, and even purchasing food there, although Jane warned Maura about the hazards of faerie food. Maura had a hard time believing that even a chocolate peanut could turn her into a chimpanzee if it was faerie food, but given all the other things she'd recently learned were true, she took Jane at her word.

They cleaned up separately, opting to meet back up in the foyer once Sean gave the word that the prisoner transport had been executed smoothly and without fault.


	15. Days Nineteen & Twenty

Jane felt a smug swelling of satisfaction when she heard the news, and it gave her a smile that accompanied the three of them to their assignment for the night: O'Doyle's Lucky Irish Pub.

It had been the cleverest set-up of the joints they'd perused, which was the largest contributing factor as to why Jane chose that one for themselves. Not only did they have their Downworlder clientele, but they had a system of distinguishing the Downworlders from the mundanes, and led the former into a separate area where they were free to be themselves.

It was an easy system, but those Downworlders guarded their safe havens with their lives. Luckily, it didn't require someone's life to get them in; just an old faerie knight with a penchant for schmoozing with the locals and the liquor. Old Rondo certainly knew how to come in handy.

All they needed was the passcode for the evening, and according to Jane's favourite confidential informant, tonight it was 'gnome tartare'. A dish, Maura had assured them upon learning of the definition (raw, diced up gnome back tossed with faerie spices and mundane potato chips), that she would not be partaking in. In fact, she'd seemed a little ill at the possibility.

They approached the place as if they owned it, Frost and Jane effortlessly swaggering to the door, Maura following dutifully. The hostess immediately gave them a knowing look, automatically taking note of their runes, but greeted them as she would any mundane customer.

It was something their research had warned: Downworlder joints don't like Shadowhunters present, and if they let you in, you're usually ignored.

Frost slipped the code word into the conversation casually, but with a lower voice than usual. The woman's eyes flickered between the three of them and it seemed to Maura as though she wished that she could throw them out right now, but the lady simply smiled mutely and nodded, leading them towards the back of the establishment and into another room.

While the main front of the bar had been relatively docile, the back was in the full swing of a party atmosphere. Drinks and food seemed to appear from every corner, and anywhere they looked it was obvious that the patrons were having an excellent time.

If they weren't on a mission, Frost would've loudly high-fived his partner before slinking off through the debauchery and finding his own little haven for the night, content in the knowledge that Jane would be doing just the same. But they were here on business and so instead of heading over the bar, they went after a deserted corner booth before someone else beat them to it.

"Damn, Jane, this is our kind of _place!_" Frost commented, pulling a menu from behind the faerie dust and sugar shakers.

Jane smirked. "I know, right? If we don't burn the place down tonight, we should definitely come back." She plucked her own menu from the pile and said, "You in, too, Maur? It'd be a good time." She turned to look at the blonde and noticed her petrified with fear.

Jane glanced around the room and then focused entirely on Maura. "Hey, you okay? What's up?" She got no answer. "Do you need to leave? Are you having a panic attack?" Still nothing. She met Frost's gaze and informed him that she was going to take Maura outside for a quick breather, but then the blonde shuddered and said breathlessly that she was fine.

The brunette Shadowhunter looked skeptical, but didn't force Maura from her seat. "Alright. So what happened?"

"Too many stimuli in a shortened frame of time for the synapses to fire appropriately." Maura explained promptly. Then noting the confuse looks on both of her companions' faces, she amended, "I was overwhelmed. This is all still very new to me."

Jane looked instantly rebuked. "Right, sorry, we can take you back to the Inst-"

"No, no, that won't be necessary. I've had time to acclimatise now and I'm feeling much better." Maura interrupted and blushed from the rudeness of the act. At Jane's disbelieving stare, she continued, "Really, I'm fine." She stole a glance at Jane's menu and excitedly said, "Oh, look at that, there's seahorse tataki."

A pixie appeared at their table and offered to take their orders. Deferring to Jane's judgement on the drink front, Maura got the aforementioned tataki while Jane ordered something called the Downworlder Clubhouse, and Frost got a Canadian Werewolf Poutine. Maura wasn't so sure she wanted to know the specifics of either of those meals.

The drinks came first, Frost's a brilliant electric green while Jane's was a subdued shade of blue. Maura's was bright neon pink and she noticed that both Frost and Jane had a difficult time reigning in their laughter at its arrival.

They made it seem only as if they were a trio out for a relaxing evening, but Maura thought it would be astoundingly obvious to anyone who paid them any attention that Jane and Barry were scouring the place with their searching gazes; looking for anything out of the ordinary.

There wasn't a single soul in the place who exhibited any of the usual signs of a rogue vampire. Of the bloodsuckers in the joint, not one of them had glowing red eyes, the sign of a recent human kill. Oh, a few of their eyes were dark red, from old human blood, but no one had the unmistakable look of fresh food.

The pink drink was surprisingly delicious, though neither Jane nor Frost would tell Maura what was in it. She couldn't pinpoint any precise flavours, but the overall effect was lovely.

Halfway through their main meals (where Maura discovered the clubhouse was a sandwich with just an element of the four Downworlder culinary cultures and Frost's poutine came with a pound of bacon and maple syrup on top of the regular fries, cheese, and gravy), a tallish blonde gentleman wandered over and asked Maura if she'd like to dance. She looked to Jane and Frost for advice, but they each just shrugged and left the decision up to her.

She accepted his cold hand and gracefully slipped out of the booth.

"Name's Dennis Rockmond," he said as he twirled her on the floor and smiled.

She couldn't help grinning back when she replied, "Maura Isles."

Meanwhile, Jane and Frost finished up their food and sighed unhappily. "Looks like this was a bust," Frost commented. "Haven't seen a single fresh blood vampire."

Jane mirrored his sentiment. "I know. There were only a few in the joint at all tonight."

"Yeah, and our friend is dancing with probably the most feminine one of the lot." Frost snorted, jerking his head in the direction of the two on the dance floor.

Jane stared for a moment before concentrating heavily on peeling the label from the bottle of ketchup that had arrived with their food. Frost studied his partner for a minute before it clicked.

"You like her."

The bottle fell on to its side on the table as Jane's hands froze. "Yeah. She's a cool person." Her hands unfroze and righted the bottle.

Frost leaned over and placed his hands on hers. "You know exactly what I mean, Jane."

She looked up and met his gaze. "No. I don't." She stated forcefully through gritted teeth.

They glared at each other until the contest was broken by the devil herself, returned from her dance. She didn't even seem to notice that she'd interrupted a charged moment.

"Hey," she beamed, automatically slipping into the booth beside Jane. "So was Dennis a vampire? His hands felt really cold." She leaned over and took a fry from Jane's plate after gauging the brunette's reaction to her doing so.

"Vampires are usually bad ideas, Maura," Frost warned, watching in fascination as the blonde got to disgruntled response from Jane after stealing food from her plate. He shook his head in amazement.

"Why is that? I mean, if they don't drink from living people, they can't be that bad, can they?" Maura asked seriously.

"They're immortal, Maur," Jane said. "Humans are just passing playthings for them more often than not, and if the case is not, it usually means you're gonna be well on your way to becoming one of those bloodsuckers," Jane explained.

That seemed to stop the doctor short. "Hmm." She glanced back over to where Dennis was chatting with the bartender. "Still, perhaps a mutually agreed upon dalliance would be alright," she mused aloud.

Jane's knuckles whitened on the table as her jawline tightened. "Yeah. Dalliances are great." She muttered. She steadfastly ignored Frost's knowing gaze. "If you'll excuse me." She waited for Maura to let her out of the booth before escaping to the bathroom.

Maura looked after her concernedly. "Is she alright?"

Sensing the perfect opportunity, Frost supplied, "I don't know. Maybe not. You could always go after her and do that girl talk in the bathroom thing girls do."

Maura perked right up. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Barold, thank you."

She got up and went after the Shaowhunter. Frost smiled to himself and whispered under his breath, "Any time."

Jane was leaning against the bathroom counter, digging her palms into the edges of the marble until her scars throbbed. She didn't even turn when the bathroom door opened and someone came up right beside her.

"Frost send you in here?"

Maura stumbled a step as she stopped beside the brunette. "Yeah."

Jane snorted. "Remind me to tell him that subtlety is not is forte," she said.

Maura looked at her, completely lost. "You are so deceptively complex, and I do not understand you. What are you talking about?"

Jane met Maura's gaze in the mirror and shrugged off the question. "Nothing. Just rambling. Those Downworlder drinks certainly can get to you." She turned to leave but Maura grasped her arm at the elbow.

"Are you lying to me?"

Jane looked her dead in the eye. "No. Now come on, everything's alright, we didn't get a single lead tonight. It's time to head back and see if anyone else was successful."

Maura just looked at her like she was nuts. "What are you talking about? We've been here maybe for an hour and a half."

Jane laughed and pointed to the clock above the bathroom door. _2:15 A.M._ Maura's jaw dropped. "Downworlders are a tricky bunch," Jane explained, and escorted her back to the table.

Frost was already standing, having deposited a few bills on the table to pay for their food. "Excellent, you two girls ready to go?" Jane and Maura nodded, following Frost to the back room exit.

"Hey, Maura! Maura!" a voice called from behind them. Everyone turned to meet the happy face of Dennis Rockmond, the vampire. "Are you leaving so soon?"

Feeling oddly shy, Maura merely nodded.

"Oh, that's such a shame, I so looked forward to dancing with you again." He said, looking genuinely disappointed. Then his features perked up. "Hey, why don't we swap phone numbers and we can get together some other time?" He asked, already pulling out his mobile device.

Unable to read either of her friend's faces to judge what they thought she should do, she pulled out her phone and they quickly entered their contact information.

"Alright, well, see ya around Rockmond, we have places to be," Jane final stated brusquely, gently taking Maura by the arm to lead her out.

"I'll call you!" Dennis promised as they left the bar.

The trip back to the Institute was fairly uneventful, the car talk mainly revolving around their lack of suspects and ponderings about where they should go tomorrow night: the same place, or do they rotate everyone through so as not to draw attention? They were still debating the pros and cons of each option as they waltzed through the door.

They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw who was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, wringing his hands, and looking sheepishly at his hands. His brown hair had grown out almost to his ears and he looked leaner, though not in a warrior fashion. He looked up when they entered and everybody froze.

Everyone, that is, except Maura.

"Jane?" she asked quietly. "Jane? Who is that?"

Struggling to find her voice, Jane replied, "That's my brother. Tommy."

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

One couldn't have cut the tension with a chainsaw, it was so thick. And it only got worse once the door opened again and the other three teams trickled in, stopping right behind Frost and Jane.

Tommy kind of met everyone's glance quickly, over and over again, like he didn't know who to concentrate on.

"What the hell is going on out here? Is no one moving past the doorway? I have food in the kitchen and-" Angela's voice boomed through the door to the kitchen before she emerged through it and followed everyone else's lead when she saw who it was.

"Ma," Tommy breathed, his gaze finally settling on someone. Angela gave him the once over with her eyes before rushing forward to envelope him in a hug. He visibly relaxed as his mother's arms wrapped his shoulders.

"Tommy, what're you doing here? Why're you so skinny? Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would've made something special. How long are you staying?" The questions poured out of Angela like a dam had burst in her mind and there was nothing she could do to slow it.

He swallowed guiltily at the hope in her voice. "Ma… I'm – I'm not staying."

Her face looked like it fell thirty eight stories. "Oh." He shifted his weight uncertainly from one leg to another, and stuffed his hands deep into his jean pockets. "I uh, actually, I'm here to see Janie."

Everyone looked at the frozen Shadowhunter in question, and her eyes flared as she said, "Don't call me Janie."

A little taken aback, but thoroughly rebuked, Tommy only nodded mutely. "What do you want from me?" Jane asked, posture rigid and unrelenting.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Could we, you know, talk somewhere else?"

"THOMAS EDWIN RIZZOLI, YOU ARE AMONGST FAMILY, THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN'T DISCUSS WITH ALL OF US PRESENT," Angela stated loudly.

Maura coughed and excused herself, fully intent on walking up the stairs to go hide in her room and avoid this ugly familial confrontation.

"Don't even move, Maura Isles, you're family too," Angela threatened as she saw the doctor slinking away from the crowd. Maura nodded meekly and resumed her place by Frost and Jane.

"Now, tell us what's happened, young man," Angela demanded, resting her hands on her hips.

"I'm getting married, Ma." He said, but before anyone could recover from the shock and congratulate him, he added, "And she's a werewolf."

Dead silence met his announcement. "Now do you see why I wanted to talk to Jane alone?"

"What do you want me to do about it, Thomas?" Jane asked, sounding tired and resigned, although her gaze had softened a bit. She was the first aside from Maura to recover from the shock (although to be perfectly fair, Maura was still astounded that there was another Rizzoli child she'd never even heard about before).

Darting his gaze from his mother to his brother, Frankie, Tommy answered, "She's pregnant. What are the chances of the kid being one, too?"

"Almost certain," Frost supplied solemnly. Tommy nodded. "Then I need help, Jane. I need your help. If we can protect it, raise it right, he won't be a monster."

Jane was already shaking her head. "I don't know why you're coming to me about this, Tommy. Cavanaugh runs the Institute, he decides who's allowed to stay. We don't take in Downworlders for any length of time, and you know that." She paused, her gaze turning hard. "Or at least you used to."

Flinching as though he'd been slapped, Tommy didn't rise to the bait. "Please. I just wanna protect my family." He looked out over the entire crowd. "We're Rizzolis. Family's all we got."

"He can stay," Sean said, stepping out from behind everyone to come face to face with Tommy. "You can all stay. But you know what happens if she hurts someone; if the kid hurts someone."

Tommy nodded.

"Are you prepared to do what you have to do? If you come back, you _come back_, do you understand me?" Cavanaugh stressed the importance of the repetition. Again, Tommy nodded. "Okay. We'll set you up in the abandoned wing. It can be like your guys' own place." Sean looked at the congregation and swiftly said, "If you hurry, you can get all of us to help you move your crap up there before we all hit the sack."

Tommy smiled gratefully, "Thank you, Cavanaugh, really, thank you." To everyone he said, "She's in the car. And we don't have that much stuff."

"Excellent," Jane said and wrapped her hand around Maura's wrist. "In that case, I'll see you all later, clearly you won't need our help."

Angela moved to say something as her only daughter and her newly adopted daughter disappeared upstairs, but Sean stopped her with a quick shake of his head, mouthing to her that it wasn't worth it. They filed out, following Tommy to the car. Everyone picked up a box until it was empty and Tommy escorted the woman inside, introducing her to everyone as they went as Lydia Sparks.

Jane dragged Maura right into her bedroom and then flung herself on the bed, face down. Maura just watched warily from the side of the bed, wondering what the brunette would do next.

Jane rolled over and sighed. She patted the bed beside her, "Go ahead and ask."

"You have another brother?" Maura asked as she lowered herself to the bed beside the Shadowhunter.

Nodding, Jane said, "Yeah. Tommy was always different than Frankie and I. Never wanted to be a Shadowhunter, never wanted to get rid of demons or train or anything. He wanted to be a mundane as much as possible." She propped her head up and laid on her side, facing Maura. "So when it came time to swear himself to the Clave, he ran away. Haven't heard from him since."

"When was that?" Maura asked softly.

"I dunno," Jane hedged. "Maybe seven years ago? Something like that. So seeing him there on the staircase just like he used to wait there for me and Frankie when we'd go out to dispose of a threat, it was a real shock to me. Never in a hundred years did I think I'd ever see him again, and never in a millennium would I think he'd have a pregnant _werewolf_ fiancé."

Maura pondered over this and then, "What did Sean mean by he'd have to really come back?"

"Clave law says that we can't house Downworlders here; that this is a sacred place and they aren't to be welcome. It's rare for a Shadowhunter to get into a relationship with one, let alone marry them. But it has happened. More often than the gay thing anyway," Jane shook herself from her tangent and got back on track. "But there's a bit of a loophole there. So long as they aren't married using the Clave's marriage ritual, and so long as the Shadowhunter is in active service of the Clave, they can stay."

Maura caught on surprisingly quickly. "So in order to stay, he has to take the Clave's oaths and become a Shadowhunter; the one thing he never wanted to be?"

Jane nodded slowly. "Yeah. Pretty much."

"But that's ridiculous!" Maura protested.

"Hey," Jane defended, "I didn't make the rules. I just have to follow them. Besides, that's the Clave for you. Ridiculous old men making calls for the Shadowhunters as a whole when they don't even get out into the real world anymore. They're all stuck in Idris."

"Idris?"

"Yeah. It's like out home town. It's warded against mundanes, so if they happen across a border, they go right through to the other side of it. It's in between Germany and France, lovely place. Beautiful, really. The buildings are made of glass which reflect the sun and it is the prettiest sight you've ever seen at sunset." Jane's voice had turned wistful.

"When were you there last?" Maura asked, intrigued by the awe in Jane's voice.

"I must've been sixteen. Last time any of us here were there was during the final battle against Valentine. That's a few years ago now, and the last time all the Shadowhunters were called back to defend the home front. We don't really go unless we're summoned, and the only time we're summoned is when major shit's about to go down."

"Language."

Jane smiled at the sudden normalcy. "Really?"

"Really." Maura returned it.

Jane glanced at the clock on her table and whistled. "Looks like it is way past your bed time, Poindexter," Jane commented, gesturing to the digital numbers reading _3:58_.

"Oh my word, yes it is."

Jane rolled over and tucker a hand underneath her pillow. "You can stay if you want. Or you can go. Whatever." Her voice was small as she made the suggestion, but Maura's heart lit up at the prospect.

"Okay." She said, and laid down on her back, crossing her hands over her chest and smiling softly.


	16. Days TwentyOne, TwentyTwo, & TwentyThree

The next day passed relatively uneventfully, most of the Shadowhunters taking the time to sleep in after their extensively late night. Maura and Jane wandered into the kitchen shortly after two to find that everyone was sitting around the kitchen in varying stages of sleepiness. There were a couple of stacks of toast and a platter of bacon resting on the table, as well as a huge bowl full of cut up fruit.

Jane filled hers with a mound of bacon and a couple of pieces of toast, whereas Maura had a single piece of toast and a heap of the fruit.

"You know, Jane, it would be healthier for you to replace some of that bacon with some fruit. It's much better for you, nutritionally speaking. The vitamins and minerals alone-"

Jane stopped as they walked to a table, causing Maura to bump into her. She turned to stare at the doctor incredulously. "Really?"

Maura nodded emphatically and then passed Jane to sit down. "Yes, really, it's a statistically proven fact, and I'm certain you'd feel better after the slight change to your diet. You'd probably be happier over all."

"Okay, Googlemouth, that's good. I'm not changing the way I eat. I'm a warrior; I need meat. I can't just live on rabbit food!"

"Actually," Maura began enthusiastically, "you could live on rabbit food, provided you added legumes in order to give you the necessary amount of protein. It shouldn't be a problem at all."

"Maura," Jane said exasperatedly. "Just eat."

Somewhat taken aback at Jane's response, Maura sat down sadly and ate her food. After a few moments, Jane sighed and reached over to pat her hand. "Sorry, Maur, it's just – it's been a long week. I didn't mean to snap and take it out on you."

Feeling much happier, Maura accepted the answer with a smile.

When they'd finished, Jane suggested heading back upstairs for another nap until dinner. Normally, Maura would have listed all of the reason as to why sleeping more than eight hours in a given day wasn't the smartest decision to regulate and order a person's life, but at Jane's earnest, hopeful look, she found herself agreeing despite her reservations.

They napped for almost another four hours, although Maura spent the majority of that time awake. She'd been sedated in the hospital and didn't really require more sleep than she'd already gotten lately, but Jane had been going at full throttle for the past however long and she deserved the break to rest.

Not to mention the fact that Maura enjoyed watching the brunette sleep; in a completely non-creepy and respectful way of course. It was interesting to watch the eyebrows relax and the stress to slowly leave her straining features.

Of course, there were a few times when Maura was certain Jane was entertaining dreams of the nightmarish variety, but either the Shadowhunter had grown quite adept at hiding the symptoms, or Maura was misinterpreting the small fluctuations to her facial muscles.

They were disturbed abruptly by quick, no nonsense raps at the door. As Jane struggled to wake, Maura slipped from the bed and opened the door, only to come face to face with someone she didn't recognise.

"Who might you be?" She asked, holding the door closed just enough so that the intruder couldn't see past her into the room.

"I'm here to see Jane," the man said, speaking with the slightest British accent to his attractive voice.

Jane was beside Maura in a flash, pushing the doctor behind her and stepping out into the hallway. "Get out of here, Casey," she demanded, her voice menacing in a feral growl Maura'd never witnessed before.

Casey was instantly apologetic. "Hey, no, I told you I was sorry. I'm not here to cause trouble, I swear."

Remaining skeptical, she raised an eyebrow and didn't say a word. Sensing an opportunity, Casey continued, "I just need a favour is all."

Jane scoffed. "Why the hell would I want to do a favour for you after you nearly killed me?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't know that faerie food could kill people! I was a stupid and young vampire, come on, give me a break!" Casey pleaded his case.

"What do you want?" Jane asked monotonously, giving absolutely no indicator of whether or not she'd actually assist him if she could.

"I just need a Shadowhunter escort to a thing in a couple of days. Nothing funny, I promise. It's just a vampire and friends gathering and I kind of maybe told my coven I'd be bringing the hottest piece of ass they'd ever seen in a Shadowhunter and, well, I may have been a little intoxicated at the moment."

Jane's eyes flashed with indignation, but before she could comment and let anger rise to her defence, Casey ploughed on. "It wouldn't mean anything; it'd just be a solid. And then I'd do you a solid in the future at some point. An exchange of services if you like. You just have to show up and not kill anyone. Easy as pie."

"And I get a future favour from you? Something I can cash whenever, wherever, for whatever I want?" Jane clarified and Maura could practically hear the relief coupled with exasperation in his voice.

"Yes, of course."

Jane thought about it for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of the offer. It wouldn't hurt to have a leader of a vampire coven in your back pocket. Although, at the same time he may simply be planning to kill her some other way. Still, she had faith that she could protect herself and the favour was too tempting to pass up. "Alright," she agreed.

"Excellent!" Casey beamed. "I'll have the details given to you before the big day. Probably wouldn't want to wear your gear, but that's alright, I can arrange something far more fetching for you to wear."

He turned to go but then stopped and abruptly spun back to her, "And if you wanted to bring that fine specimen you have in your room with you to the event as well…" Casey let the sentence hang and Jane had to fight the urge to gag at the tone in his voice.

"Don't even." She warned. He threw his hands up in mock surrender before practically skipping away down the hall.

Maura was waiting right behind Jane when the brunette turned back into her room and it almost sent Jane reeling from surprise.

"Holy shit, Maura! Warn a girl when you sneak up behind her like that!"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Maura apologised, placing her hand on Jane's shoulder to make sure she was alright. Once it seemed as though Jane would be just fine, Maura asked, "So what was that all about?"

"Oh, that?" Jane asked, trying to find a way to evade the question. "Nothing really. An old thing, no big deal."

Maura caught Jane's hands in her own and forced the brunette to look at her. "Jane. Tell me."

"Oh alright, Maura. He was just an old boyfriend. As I said and I'm sure you heard, he once almost killed me by giving me faerie food at a Downworlder party. Thankfully Tessa was still here at the Institute and she can be trusted to keep a secret, or else I probably would've gone the way of the dodo bird."

"Why would she being trustworthy matter?"

"Well, um," Jane flushed slightly and rubbed the back of her neck out of nervous habit. "I wasn't technically allowed to be dating anyone at that point, least of all a Downworlder who could get me into absolute heaps of trouble, but I did anyway. Tessa agreed not to share that particular fact with my parents when she fixed me up and I've been grateful ever since."

"Your parents? You mean your father, too?" The subject had never been broached before and Maura wasn't sure how Jane would react.

"Yeah. He used to be a Shadowhunter and part of the family but he ran out on Ma. We don't really like to talk about it; bad memories and such."

Maura nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. Do you know why he left or would you rather not talk about it?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, but I know the curiousity will eat you alive if I don't offer you some explanation, and frankly, I'd rather you hear it from me than anyone else." Jane rubbed her hands together, massaging her palms.

Maura noticed and took over the act for her.

"He met another woman. A younger woman. We're not really sure who she was or what spell she had him under to uproot from his family, but he did. He gave up his Shadowhunter title, left the Clave, and we haven't heard from him since." She shrugged, trying to act like it didn't still bother her. "It threw my Ma completely, and it's not like Frankie or I were expecting it. Tommy wasn't either, but he'd always looked up to Pa as his best role model. In fact, between you and me, I think that's where Tommy first went when he left us."

Maura was speechless; she didn't know what to say, what response or comment would be appropriate or helpful.

"Anyway, that's that, I guess." She paced around the room for a minute. "Okay, I gotta do something. I'm going to the training room. Are you in or out?"

"In," Maura answered at once, surprising herself a little bit by the speed with which she'd responded. Jane nodded and they left the room quickly, the Shadowhunter practically bouncing off the walls in her quest to rid herself of all the random energy she'd just acquired.

Apparently no one had dealt out assignments about which bars to hit next for the night, because all the younger Shadowhunters were in the room when they arrived. They traded brief greetings before the boys worked on the speed bags in a corner, trying to outdo the others in some sort of a male competition thing.

Jane led Maura over to the mat and gestured for her to get onto it.

"What? Why? Usually I just watch," Maura said, gingerly stepping onto the rubbery floor covering.

"Yeah, usually you do. But we're gonna switch things up today. If you're going to keep hanging out with us, and it seems like that's what you've got your mind set on thus far, you're going to want to learn at least a bit about how to defend yourself, right?" Jane gave her a curious glance. "Or maybe you don't, I just thought-"

"No, you're right. I do. So what are we going to do?" Maura asked, testing out the spongy consistency beneath her feet.

"I figured we'd start with some easy stuff first, how to get out of holds and incapacitate an attacker. I don't know if you've taken any self defence courses before, but it's different when your attacker isn't human; when it's a demon made of smoke or with poisonous spines or any other sort of weird thing." Jane explained, rolling her neck around and stretching her arms a bit.

"You may want to take a minute and stretch out your limbs. This part of the exercise shouldn't prove too strenuous, but afterward we may go over some basic dagger work." Jane chuckled once. "I noticed you didn't really know what to do with the blade when I handed it to you the other day, so we'll see if we can't change that up a bit, make you a bit more confident with those things." Maura did as Jane suggested and quickly loosened her muscles.

"Alright," Maura agreed readily, hypothesising that she was about to get her butt kicked.

"Excellent. I'll demonstrate what you should do first in certain situations, and then I'll be your attacker and you can try 'em out on a real life test subject." She bent her knees and cracked her knuckles. "You ready?"

Well, suffice it to say, Maura had Jane demonstrate whatever move she was supposed to attempt several times before trying it, and it took her quite a few tries to get every single one of them passable. But once she got the hang of it, it seemed to come almost naturally to her, and Jane was impressed by her stubbornness, to hang tight and work through all of her kinks.

Once thoroughly satisfied with Maura's work at the grappling type stuff they'd been doing, they took a mini break and then Jane got out a couple of knives. Not seraph blades, but cold, hard steel, like the kind Maura would be more familiar with.

"Now these aren't sharpened; they're for training, but they could still bruise and hurt if we're not careful. I'm not going to give you a plastic knife and then hand you a real on in the field and expect you to be just as good with it, because you won't be. You train with as close to the real thing as possible so that there are less ways to fuck up out there, cool?"

"Language," Maura corrected, weighing the blade in her hand to try and get a feel for it.

Frost stopped the other boys from their bag competition and nodded at the girls. As a unit they wandered over quietly to watch. Usually, Jane with a knife was like magic, she was so good with them. They wondered how well she'd be able to teach a mundane like Maura her craft.

"Really, Maura? I'm handing you a knife and the only thing you comment on is my use of a four letter word?" Jane rolled her eyes and then hunkered down into set position, her feet shoulder width apart with one slightly in front of the other and knees bent. "Now copy me. This stance should give you the maximum amount of power form your legs. As a woman, that's-"

"-where the majority of my strength will be found, yes, they covered that in medical school." Maura said and then abruptly added, "Sorry. I don't know where that came from."

Jane laughed. "It's okay, Maur, it just means that maybe you've been hanging out with me a bit too much."

"I don't think that's possible, Jane, it's not like we spend every moment together."

"Except we kind of do." Jane shook her head smiling. "Whatever though, are you good to go?"

Maura nodded and they went at it, Jane putting Maura through certain sequences with different moves.

"Do you think they realise?" Giovanni whispered to the guys.

"Nah," Frankie said, "they're too oblivious."

Frost nodded in agreement with Frankie's analysis. "I kind of mentioned it to Jane, but she pretty much just shrugged me off."

Giovanni slapped Frost on the shoulder. "Dude, why would you do that? You're messing with the delicate balance here!"

Frankie and Frost traded a look that asked 'what the fuck is he talking about bro?' then shrugged when they couldn't find an answer.

They turned their attention back to the mat, where Maura was doing surprisingly well for her first time, particularly after having a bit of difficulty with the last exercises.

"Good form, but your elbow is wobbly, tighten it up a bit," Jane instructed as they went, calling out other bits of helpful information along the way.

"Okay, I bet you my Guardian Chogar King action figure that they get together within a month," Frost wagered, drawing the other two guys closer so as not to be overheard.

"You know how much I want that," Frankie glared at him. "Fine, I toss in Celtics tickets."

Giovanni grinned hugely, "I'll put up my contact for getting the _hottest_ babes."

The three traded nods. "Deal."

"Are you three done creeping on us, now, or are you just having some manly time together?" Jane called from the mat, hip cocked and arms crossed. Maura just stared at all of them quizzically.

"We're done. In fact, we're just gonna go shower," Frost said, backing away to the doorway.

"Together? Interesting. Didn't know you guys swung that way." Jane smirked, sensing an easy victory.

Frankie slapped Frost on the back of his head. "Damn it, Frost, you left us wide open for that one!"

Rubbing the back of his head, Frost retorted, "Oh please, we all know anything Giovanni would've said would've been ten times worse."

"Hey!" Gio cried out indignantly as they trooped out the door, continuing to bicker along the way.

"Sorry about them," Jane offered as she took the knife back from Maura. She'd done her level best not to hurt the blonde, and she believed she'd mostly succeeded except for that one little tap she'd given her by accident. She herself had not been so lucky, Maura had gotten in a few hits with more force than Jane had anticipated, but the bruises would be gone within the hour once she got an iratze near them.

"It's not a problem. It's kind of interesting to study you all and how you interact with each other. It's quite fascinating really. Reminds me of all the people watching I use to do when I was younger, trying to figure people out from a respectable distance until I realised it was pretty futile and stuck with the things I could understand. Dead bodies, mainly." Maura said brightly.

Jane raised an eyebrow at her, "And that's your idea of a good time? Dead bodies?"

Maura nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes, you'd be surprised by how much information one corpse can tell you. It's amazing."

"I'll take your word," Jane promised, tucking the knives away and leading Maura from the training room. "You did good today, Maur."

"Well," Maura corrected without meeting Jane's gaze.

"What?"

"It's 'you did well', as it's an adverb and not an adjective you're looking to use," Maura explained.

Jane just shook her head. "Okay, Maura. Whatever you say." Changing the subject, she said, "Alright, well, I suppose we should shower ourselves and then probably get some sleep. We'll go out on patrol again tomorrow night and see where that gets us."

"Same place?" Maura asked as they reached their rooms.

"Possibly. We may switch it up. I'll figure it out tomorrow when I hit the books again."

"Hit the books? Whatever for? And with what?" Maura asked, thoroughly perplexed at Jane's phrase.

"It's a figure of speech, Maur. It means I'm going to end up doing more research tomorrow to try and figure out what the best plan of action is." Jane explained, a small smile on her face at Maura's lack of social knowledge.

"Oh, I can help you with that if you like, despite that terminology making absolutely no sense." Maura offered as they stood in the hall.

"Sure, if you want. Sure there isn't something else you'd rather be doing, though?" Jane checked, giving her an out.

"I'm content to assist you," Maura affirmed. "Although I have been wondering, why do you end up doing the research and handing out assignments and not the other guys, or the older Shadowhunters like Vince and Sean?"

"Oh, that's easy. I'm the oldest of the younger generation, so that's why I'm kind of in charge of the four of us. As for why I hand out assignments and stuff, I think it's part of their plan to get me ready to take on an Institute of my own when the time is right. Plus, I'm capable and they could probably use the time to do other things. Korsak, for example, probably uses the extra time to dote on his ridiculous animals. Cavanaugh uses it to go over legal matters and financial stuff with my Ma and the Shadowhunters they report to in the Clave."

"Take over your own Institute?"

Jane nodded. "Yeah. Eventually the older ones die or move on to other placements and so we have to step up to replace them and keep order. There aren't a bunch of Shadowhunters left, though, because we keep dying in the heat of battle, so usually anyone they train to do the job dies before they really get a chance to try their hand." She shrugged, "I guess they're hoping they get lucky with me or else everything will go to shambles if one of the boys has to take over."

"I also hope they get lucky. It would be awful if you died." Maura admitted, tone somber.

"I agree. I'd never get another cheeseburger," Jane pouted in mock sadness.

"I was being serious!" Maura protested, though she couldn't help laughing a bit at Jane's antics.

"So was I! Do you not have any idea how much I love my burgers? Those things are life!"

"You really do need to eat healthier," Maura admonished.

"I'll eat better when I'm dead, Maura."

"No you won't, that is a scientific-" the realisation that Jane was mocking her only appeared to Maura because of the pure amusement present in Jane's face at the beginning of what Jane was sure would have been a very in depth lecture about how once one is dead, one doesn't eat anything at all, especially not cheeseburgers.

A little disgruntled, Maura huffed and before Jane could sensor herself, "That's adorable," slipped out from behind her lips.

They stared at each other in mirrored surprise at the comment, both a little shocked that the brunette had voiced such an opinion.

"Right. Bed. See you tomorrow," Jane blurted out, recovering first and disappearing hastily into her bedroom.

Maura wanted to knock at her door and ask her what she meant by that and why she left so suddenly, but decided that Jane probably wanted nothing less than to be left alone at that moment.

Instead, she returned to her own room and grabbed a change of clothes along with her bag of toiletries before she trotted back down the hall to the bathroom to shower.

It was empty. She'd half expected Jane to be there first, with the door securely locked, but it seemed she'd not yet emerged from her room. Maura took advantage of the situation and cleaned herself up before returning to her room and noticing that it didn't seem as though Jane's door had moved at all since they'd parted ways awkwardly earlier.

She slipped into her room and gracefully flopped onto her bed. Her phone blinking on the beside table caught her attention and she removed it from the charger before finding out what had occurred.

_One new voice message_.

She hit the speed dial for her voice mailbox and went through the steps patiently. _Welcome to Verizon wireless voice messaging. Please enter your password_. She did and rolled over onto her back. _You have one new wireless voice message. First new message._

_"Hey, Maura, it's Dennis from last night. It's about eight o'clock. I was wondering if you wanted to get together tomorrow night for drinks? Maybe food? Let me know what you think and call me back at 857-555-5649, please? Thanks. Hope to hear from you soon!"_

_End of messages. To delete your wireless voice message press '7'. To save it, press '9'._

Maura tapped nine so that she would be able to call him back the next day, after they figured out where they were going to be tomorrow night. There were butterflies fluttering in her gut, as the turn of phrase goes, regardless of the fact that it was just little neural impulses triggering that response in her cortex.

They made her feel warm and fuzzy. She drifted off to sleep like that, visions of the smartly dressed and well-mannered man she met the night before carrying her away on the wings of imagination.

Meanwhile, Jane was pacing her room, wearing down the hardwood of her flooring. She couldn't believe she'd let that slip out. If she'd been smarter about it, she would've just passed it off as a mere friendly observation, but she'd frozen and ran, completely undermining that story of defence if she brought it up the next day. She cursed herself for her stupidity.

She moved her pacing to right in front of the door and listened as Maura walked down the hall. At least that meant she had the next few minutes to not worry about the blonde coming to her door.

Damn Frost for even putting the possibility of the idea in her head. Damn him for not finding anything wrong with it. Does he have any idea how blacklisted their family and Institute would be if anyone even suspected that she'd entertained the notion of liking Maura as more than just a friend and possible colleague? Does he even care?

She groaned, frustration evident in the relatively quiet sound. They would be ruined. Not only did they have one disgraced Shadowhunter and one disgraced son who'd never wanted to be a Shadowhunter, they also had a woman Shadowhunter who was so butch she was into chicks? _Shoot me now,_ Jane pleaded hopelessly.

She flicked her bedroom light off and simply threw herself onto her bed, begging for an easy solution to her little problem. She never heard Maura return to her room.

But later that night, Maura certainly heard Jane from across the hall, calling out in fright. She jumped out of her bed and ran to her friend's room just in time to catch her mid thrash as she tumbled from her bed.

They fell to the floor together, Jane awkwardly landing on top of Maura and flying off almost as quickly, like the contact burned her physically.

"Holy shit, Maura! What are you doing in here?! Are you okay?!" The words were rushed and as Jane turned the light on, it was obvious to Maura that the brunette was experiencing an elevated heart rate, due in part to her skin's flushed appearance.

"You were having a nightmare. I heard and I came over to see if you were alright," Maura explained, getting to her feet to be on the same level as Jane. "Are you alright?"

Visibly shaking, Jane responded, "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. It's okay. You can go back to your room."

Maura narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "No, Jane, that was a pretty bad terror from what I witnessed. I would feel better if you were under supervision for the rest of the night, at least to ensure you don't hurt yourself at some point."

Jane's hackles rose immediately at the inference that she couldn't take care of herself. "Now you listen here, Maura Isles, I am-"

Maura walked over and put her hand over Jane's mouth. "Not another word," she warned, glaring at the brunette seriously. "I'm staying here and I'm watching over you, don't even try to talk me out of it."

She could sense Jane was getting fired up enough to fight her tooth and claw for every single millimetre, but simply said, "If you fight me, I will pester you endlessly about that adorable comment you made earlier." The fight just seemed to drop from Jane's shoulders as she hunched over.

"Fine."

Jane stalked back to her bed and discontentedly curled up on her side, arms crossing her chest. Maura went around to the other side and sat down before primly leaning back against the pillows.

"Goodnight," Maura said softly.

"Night," Jane replied curtly.

After a few moments, Maura murmured, "It's okay to say someone's adorable, Jane. It doesn't make you any less of a bad ass."

Jane was quiet for a moment before whispering, "Okay."

**CHAPTER NINE**

When Jane woke, it was to a softly snoring Maura curled up against her side. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from cooing at the sight.

_Cooing? I am Jane Rizzoli, I do not fucking coo at anything. Not even a God damn baby seal. And certainly not my closest female friend._

**Female friend, Rizzoli, you're going nuts for her and you know it. You've barely gotten to know her and you're already tripping over yourself to fall in love with her you idiot.**

_HEY! WHOA! Let's not develop split personality here!_

**But you're being an idiot!**

_Am not!_

**Are too!**

_Am not! She wants that freaky vampire._

**If you just gave it a shot-**

_No. Go away._

Jane drew a circle on top of the covers covering her thigh and breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn't perfect. Maybe she wasn't completely crazy yet.

She slipped out of bed gently, careful not to wake Maura, and opened the door to find a small white envelope on the other side.

Curious, she opened it up and read it standing in the hall.

_Jane._

_10pm. The Lower Depths._

_No Shawdowhunter gear. Please._

_C. Jones_

Casey was not one to linger on prose, it seemed. He was straight and to the point. If Jane wasn't still extremely cautious and wary about the guy, he might prove to be a useful distraction.

She had a bad feeling about going to the dinner all of a sudden, or maybe that was a completely unrelated gut feeling which had more to do with the blonde rolling out of her bed.

"Jane? You okay?" Maura's sleepy voice was also adorable. And sexy. _God, Jane, stop it. Now is not the time._

"Yeah," Jane swallowed loudly. "Fine. Casey was just dropping off instructions for tonight. Looks like our team won't be hitting a place tonight because of my commitment."

Maura looked pleasantly surprised at the brunette. "Really? I could go with Frost, it's only surveillance after all."

Jane didn't even seem to consider it. "No, Maur, it's not your job; it's mine. We'll go tomorrow night."

"I don't mind," Maura insisted, flicking her eyes away from Jane steady gaze.

Spidey senses tingling, Jane asked, "What? What's really going on?"

Sighing, Maura admitted, "Dennis called me last night, said he would love to get together again with me tonight. I thought I could call him with the place we were going to and multitask a bit this evening. But that's alright, I can always just say tomorrow works just as well."


	17. Days TwentyFour & TwentyFive

Jane used every ounce of her willpower to keep her brow from furrowing and her fists from balling up at her sides in jealousy. "Okay, then, Maura, you two can go without me tonight. Just talk to Frost about it, I'm sure he's game. He loves diner food."

Maura smiled widely, thoroughly pleased. "Really?" she asked hopefully. Saying no would have broken Jane's heart.

"Really."

"I'll tell Barry at breakfast!" Maura stated happily, practically bouncing over to Jane and giving her a tight squeeze of a hug.

"Awesome," Jane muttered as Maura practically skipped down the hallway. She rubbed her hands haggardly over her face. Then she left her room and trudged down to the kitchen.

"Snap, Jane, what happened to you?" Frost asked when she sat down beside him with only a muffin on her plate.

"Nothing," she answered morosely, picking away at the paper. Maura erupted into the kitchen at that moment, heading straight for the bowl of fruit, while Jane obviously kept her eyes well away from her friend's figure.

"Something happen between you two?" His voice dropped a couple octaves.

"No."

"So nothing happened between you two?"

"Right."

His silence was clearly skeptical, but he let the matter drop as the doctor came to the table.

"So, Barry," Maura began, excitement permeating every word. "Jane has a thing tonight, but I'd be happy to accompany you for surveillance," Maura offered, waiting impatiently for his response.

"Um, okay?" Frost agreed, uncertainly as he surveyed his parabatai. "What thing do you have?" he directed the question at Jane.

"Favour. No big deal." She answered shortly, tearing her muffin apart but not actually consuming it.

Frost glared at her, torn between wanting to rebuke her for the crappy answer and wanting to chasten her for faking eating, but he did neither. He'd get the whole story out of her later, while Maura was disposed somewhere else. He'd find a way to get Gio and Frankie on that detail as soon as he could get away from the two subjects in question.

Jane's mood didn't improve over the day, and she took full advantage of the quiet required for her research work to remain sullen for the better part of the day. Finally around four o'clock in the afternoon, after another meal lacking in Jane's consumption of actual food, Frost put his plan into action.

Giovanni and Frankie knocked on the library door, after slicing playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who had to bite the bullet. Giovanni lost, so he showed Maura his deeply cut arm and asked if his arm might snap in half now, or if all his tendons would ever return should he use an iratze and idiotic questions like that.

Maura, of course wanting to be of assistance went off with them immediately to the infirmary to further inspect the wound and offer any guidance she could think of about the injury.

Frost snuck into the library after the three had taken their leave and sat down across from Jane, face set in his 'all business, I will take none of your bullshit today' mode.

"Spill," he commanded, leaning forward onto his elbows and staring relentlessly at Jane's eyes when she refused to meet his gaze.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore and lost the competition. "Nothing to spill, Frostie."

He snorted. "Clearly something happened. Just tell me so we can fix it and move on with our lives, Jane."

"Nothing, Frost! She has a date tonight while you two are on surveillance duty is all. It's nothing; no big deal."

"Aww, Jane," Frost said sympathetically. "I'm sorry, buddy."

She chuckled humourlessly. "It's fine. I'm fine. I don't even know what you're hinting at."

He gave her his knowing look, "Clearly you do, or you wouldn't have phrased your response like that."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "When did you get so smart?"

"Learned from the best," he smiled, nudging her with his knuckles.

She sighed deeply and her face took on a look of resignation. "It's fine, Frost. I'll get over it. No way in hell am I putting myself through the rejection, nor my family through the rumours. No fucking way." She promised both herself and Frost. "You know how our kind views it. I can't. I won't."

He was shaking his head before she'd even finished. "We don't go to Idris often enough for that to be a contributing factor to your decision, Jane. And you know that we'd all still love you and want you with us. I mean, it might take some of us more time than others, but we'd all get there and support you." He squeezed her arm. "Seriously though, the doc totally has the hots for you. She looks at you like the fricking sun shines out of your every orifice. She wants you man, she just may not know it yet."

Jane chuckled reluctantly at Frost's conjured imagery. "Shut up."

He drew his finger over his heart in an 'x'. "I swear to God, Jane, no lies. That woman wants to get her hands all over you and-"

"Who wants to do what to Jane?" Maura asked from the doorway, paused halfway through walking through it when she'd caught that last bit of the conversation.

"Nothing," Jane covered hastily. "Frost just thinks he's funny."

"I'm hilarious," Frost argued, playing along.

Maura nodded seriously and went to sit beside Jane. Frost winked at Jane, trying to use Maura's choice of seating as further proof. She rolled her eyes at him as Maura contributed, "I'm certain the level of Barry's hilarity is more than acceptable, Jane."

"Yeah, Jane, listen to Maura." Frost echoed, smirking mischievously. "Anyway, have you ladies decided where we're all going tonight?"

Jane looked visibly relieved when Frost did allude to anything else. "So far it's looking like the same places would be our best bet. We could rotate though, but I suggest we return to the same ones, maybe build up a repertoire with the regulars, get to know the bartenders and servers, get information that way too if we need it, you know?" Jane suggested, closing the book in front of her with a loud clap and leaning back in her chair.

Frost nodded, "Yeah, I agree. It makes more sense that way. So Maura and I will head back to O'Doyle's, then?"

Maura nodded enthusiastically. "We could get there earlier tonight, seeing as how we're not waiting for certain things to get through to Idris."

"That's not a bad idea. Yeah, we can head over around six or even five maybe."

Jane perked up a little at Frost's words. "Yeah, hey, I could still come with you guys for a bit until I have to go."

It hadn't seemed possible that Maura's smile could get any bigger once realising she could have several extra hours with Dennis, but upon hearing that Jane could accompany them at least for a bit, that's exactly what it seemed to do. "Great!" She said.

Frost smirked at Jane, but echoed Maura's sentiment, "Yeah, it's great."

"I'll go get ready and call Dennis and then we can go!" Maura exclaimed happily, quickly deserting her seat and disappearing through the doorway yet again.

The silence was loaded for a moment until Jane asked, "So, did you really need to get one of them to injure themselves like that?"

Frost chuckled. "It was the only thing we could both think of and agree on. I think they might have a bit of a crush on your doctor anyhow, the way they were fighting about who'd get to be the victim."

Jane gave him a sour look complete with narrowed eyes. "Not funny, Frost."

"Who's laughing?" He countered seriously. He shook his head in mock surrender. "Let's just go and get ready, shall we? Before Maura leaves without us."

Jane caught his arm before he managed to stand all the way upright. "Have we run all the checks on this guy? I don't want anything to happen to her, she's our responsibility now."

Frost actually had the audacity to roll his eyes at her. "Of course I did. I'm surprised you didn't ask me to the night we met the guy, but I did it anyway." He shrugged. "He checks out, nothing major in any book or file. He seems clean."

"Hrumph," Jane said, disgruntled. "Well, let's still be careful. He gives me an uneasy feeling."

Jane stood up and Frost put his hand on her shoulder, lowering his head to look her straight in the eye. "Are you sure that's not just jealousy because he's got your girl?"

She kicked him in the shin on her way out of the library.

"Hello Dennis, it's Maura." Jane stopped in her tracks outside the door.

"I'm well thank you, I'm sorry it took me so long to return your call but I had to figure out my plans for the evening." She really should just walk past and move on with her life, but she couldn't.

"I'll be at O'Doyle's again tonight if you wanted to drop by and see me. I know the sun doesn't go down until about eight, but after that works for me. I'll probably be there until about the same time as last time." Oh yeah, no way in hell was Jane moving now. She was rooted inexplicably to the spot.

"Excellent. I look forward to seeing you again, too, tonight." It was impossible. She could hear the freaking smile in Maura's voice. Her feet became unglued from the floor and she dashed into her own room before she could possibly be found eavesdropping outside the blonde's door.

She leaned heavily against the wall once she'd closed the door. _Don't even, Rizzoli, don't you dare fucking even. You do not fancy that woman. You do not find her aesthetically pleasing nor attractive. You don't want to kiss her and you don't want to hold her hand in the park. The only reason you're reacting like this is because he's a fucking vampire and that is literally flirting with death. You're just concerned for her well being. That's it. That is fucking it. Don't you dare think otherwise or you're going to be in for a world of hurt you sorry fucker._

It was amazing how much better she felt after tearing into herself. A certain calm pervaded every atom of her being after that little rant, and she noted it was much easier to breathe now.

The thought of being a vampire's arm candy herself tonight was a bit off putting, but she'd agreed to not wearing Shadowhunter gear and that didn't leave her a lot of acceptable clothing options. As much as she detested dresses, from the looks of her closet, they seemed to really be the only possible route she had left.

She plucked a simple black one from its hanger and held it up against her body. Somehow she managed to keep from grimacing at the sight. _Frost and them are going to have an absolute field day with this. And if Ma sees me…_

Knocking at her door took her by complete surprise, and she shoved the garment away from her as if it burned her. She turned to the door and opened it, fully expecting it to be Maura or Frost or, hell, even Frankie. She wasn't expecting Tommy to be on the other side, nervously rubbing his neck.

"Oh, hey Jane."

She just stood there, waiting for him to explain his presence.

"Um, so we haven't talked since I came back," he trailed off wondering if his sister would say anything. She didn't. He pressed on. "I know it's been a while, and I'm sure I'm rusty. But I was just wondering if you'd have it in you to help me train back up again? If I'm going to really become one of you guys, I need to get back into it."

"You were never into it, Tommy, that's why you ran away."

She watched her brother flinch at the jab, but he made no move to defend himself. "Yeah. But I've got to do what I've got to do, Jane, to protect my – to protect my family."

"We were your family."

His expression is pained. "I know that. I know I let you all down when I left and I know you haven't forgiven me for it, maybe you never will. I'm just asking you to help me stay alive out there. One rusty move and I'm a goner, Jane. I wanna be there for my kid growing up. I don't wanna be like Pop."

She sighed at the honesty in his voice. "Fine. But not tonight. Tomorrow. Spend tonight with your family and be in the training room before breakfast tomorrow. I don't want you puking on me."

He wrinkled his nose at her choice of visual but nodded. "Thanks, Jane." He said and walked away.

She sighed and let the door close by itself before picking up the black dress from the crumpled pile floor. She shed her regular clothing and pulled the dress on, hating to admit even to herself that the fabric felt lovely against her skin.

"Jane are you - oh," Maura's voice came from the doorway. The doctor was looking beautiful in a blazer and skirt, Jane couldn't help but notice. She knew she looked like a deer in a headlights, but she couldn't wipe the look off her face.

"I never knew you owned a dress, Jane! You look gorgeous," Maura complimented, raking her eyes up and down Jane's stunning figure. The Shadowhunter fought a blush and smiled shyly.

"Thanks, Maur. I don't have a lot of in between clothes. It's either fancy or it's fighting gear."

Maura nodded appreciatively, "Well, you certainly pull off the fancy. Casey is a lucky guy."

Jane snorted. "He's just a vampire. He gets this favour from me, I get a favour from him and those kinds of things make our little world keep calm and carry on."

"Really?" Maura asked, as if this were a new concept. "Well, if you ever need me to do you any _favours_, then you just let me know."

Jane gulped audibly as her imagination launched into over drive. She shook her head violently, until she felt Maura's concerned gaze upon her. She blushed. "Sorry. Couldn't shake the impulse," she lied. Maura's gaze turned skeptical but no more questions were asked upon the subject.

"Shall we?" She inquired, voice bright and eyes shiny.

Jane grabbed her pair of high heels from under her bed and nodded, slipping them on her feet. "Yeah, let's go."

They met Frost downstairs, and Jane pre-emptively struck, "Say a word and I swear to God you won't be entertaining any ladies for at least a month."

He threw his hands up in surrender, but the smirk on his face was one of complete entertainment. "Alright, alright, I was just going to say that you look lovely. Maura."

Jane slapped the back of his head. "Very funny."

"What?" He asked, indignant. "She's looking very fine. _Don't you think, Jane?_"

Oh. Loaded question. Jane thought that Frost should learn how to play chess.

"Yeah, she looks great. Can we go now?" She walked past him and out the front door, purpose pushing her steps.

"Is she alright?" Maura asked, noting the rushed answer.

Frost shrugged. "Is she ever?" he answered cryptically, and then followed his partner out the door.

When they arrived, the bar was almost empty, at least in the human portion. Frost handed over the new code and they went into the back.

Though not as busy as it had been the other night, it was busier than the front. The same pixie waitress came by with menus and they set up shop in another booth, though on the opposite side of the bar.

They watched the seemingly regulars waltz in and trade handshakes and hugs with the staff. Jane ordered a different kind of beverage for Maura that evening, whereas she and Frost stuck by their regular orders in places like this.

Gradually the place filled up and the three of them placed their food orders, this time with Jane opting for the human menu of a greasy double bacon and cheese burger with a side of 'genuine Canadian' poutine.

"I highly doubt that's really Canadian, Jane," Maura commented as she handed her menu over to the pixie.

Jane shrugged. "S'not the point. The point is the glorious golden brown of fries covered in cheese and drenched with gravy." She shivered with anticipation. "It's the most beautifully delicious heart attack on a plate I've ever had the pleasure of bearing witness to."

Frost was stifling his laughter at her over the top, exultant tone, while Maura gazed at her like she'd grown a third eye.

Rolling her eyes, Jane said, "Maur, we're Shadowhunters. We don't generally live long enough to die from high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Don't even."

Maura glared at the Shadowhunter, but remained quiet. She zeroed in on an accessory she'd never seen on the brunette before. "Is that a watch?"

Jane glanced down at her wrist and then back up at Maura. "Yeah…" she answered uncertainly, like it was a trick question.

"Why do you have a watch? I've never seen you wear one before." Jane could practically see the pout forming on Maura's lips.

"Downworlder bar, time moves differently, remember? If I wanna get to the thing on time, I need to have an alarm for it or else it'll be 2am and there goes my chance for a vampiric favour."

Frost looked up and gestured with his chin at the entrance. "Speaking of _things_…"

Both the women turned to look at the door, Maura with that fluttery feeling back in her stomach, and Jane with a solid tonne of lead holding her firmly to the seat.

Their food arrived just as Dennis reached their table.

They traded pleasant greetings, and indulged in what Jane decided was ridiculously mundane small talk chit chat. She finished her burger quickly though, and tried her best not to ignore Dennis as much as she wanted to.

Thankfully, she was saved by the bell. Her alarm went off and she made fast excuses, almost glossing over a departing word for the vampire.


	18. Day TwentySix

She knew Frost would give her the details of Maura's little impromptu date later when they were all back at the Institute, whether she wanted them or not.

Stepping out to the edge of the curb, she caught sight of a taxi and whistled, tossing her hand into the air. It stopped in front of her and she climbed in before giving the driver the address of the underground bar. Typical vampire hangout, it would seem.

She threw some bills over the headrest and got out of the car, smoothing out her dress as she walked over and descended the stairs leading to the bar's entrance. The repetitious thudding of bass dropping music assaulted her ears as she stepped inside.

It was dark, the faint glow of red lights the only contribution to the brightness in the place. A feeling of dread spread through every inch of her skin.

"Jane!" Casey called, and Jane spun around on the spot, trying to locate the owner of the voice.

"What do you want, Casey?" She called loudly, senses on high alert, waiting for the slightest sound to give away his location. The seraph dagger she'd slipped into her thigh sheath seemed to burn with the want to sink into the vampire.

"What I've always wanted, darling," he chuckled. "Your demise."

"Why?" she snarled, arms taut and ready for a brawl.

"Because you killed my sire, my fledglings, and as long as you are alive, my brethren, my kin will continue to fall victim to your swords and your wrath!" He roared.

"They deserved it, you good for nothing bloodsucker, just as you deserve it too!"

He chortled. "Oh yeah? You and what army? Still talking trash with nothing to back you up. No weapons, no backup; nothing! So you tell me, who do you think will walk out of here, and who do you think will lie here for eternity to rot amongst the maggots and the rats?"

She said nothing.

"That's right," he cooed. "You will simply disappear off the face of the planet, my dear, and no one will care. Not one single person will give a damn that you haven't returned home. And my family and I will celebrate the day I erased you from existence!"

"Show yourself, you bastard! If you wanna kill me, come right up to me and get me!" She taunted. "Or are you not enough of a vampire for that? Gonna make your little ones do it on your behalf because you're too much of a _God_ damned coward?"

He hissed and all of a sudden he was right there in front of her, growling, pure hatred etched on his face.

"How many of you did I kill?" She wondered aloud, mockingly thoughtful. "You all look alike, I'm afraid I lose track."

"ENOUGH!" He yelled and jumped at her.

She caught him around the neck, keeping his fangs away from her, as they fell to the dusty concrete floor. They rolled until Jane was on top, using her knees to keep him pinned.

Vampires were supernaturally strong, though, and after only a few seconds he'd thrown her off of him before jumping up and smirking, walking closer to her body lying crumpled on the floor, on her side.

"Any last words?" He asked before leaning down and crouching over her.

"Not today," she growled, and whipping the dagger free from its sheath, she stuck him straight in the chest with it.

He howled with pain and sprang away from her, removing himself from the blade. The hole started pouring blood, and it ran through his shaking fingers as he stared down at it. "How?" he wheezed.

Jane stood up to her full height, dagger still in hand and approached him. "I never just keel over and die," she promised, and then using the dagger, she cleanly removed his head from the rest of his convulsing body.

She stood there for a moment, allowing the past events to catch up with her mind as her pulse raced and her limbs trembled with adrenaline. Taking control of herself, she wiped the dagger on the hem of her dress and checked the time. It was only just past ten thirty, so Frost and Maura should both still be at the bar.

Back outside, it took almost five minutes to hail a cab, but this driver liked to speed and the return trip took substantially less time than the instigating one. She shuffled out of the back, once again tossing money over the seat, and disappeared into the bar.

Maura's semi date with Dennis had gone rather well thus far, except there seemed to be an older gentleman watching her from the far end of the bar. Occasionally he'd take a sip from the dark beverage he was consuming, but more often than not, he seemed content simply to watch from afar.

In all honesty, it was starting to creep Maura out. She asked Dennis if he knew the guy in the corner and he said that everyone did. That there was the owner of the joint. Mr. Patrick Doyle himself. He even added a bit of patron gossip which stated that he was a brilliant warlock, but never told anyone so that the Clave wouldn't try to keep tabs on him.

At the remark, Frost stopped pretending not to eavesdrop and scoffed lightly.

Dennis had the good grace to blush. "Whoops, sorry, forgot what company I was keeping." He turned back to Maura, "Speaking of, I hope you don't find it rude, but what exactly are you? You don't have Marks like your pals, so you aren't a Shadowhunter. There doesn't seem to be a distinguishing characteristic which makes you a warlock. No fangs, no claws, you don't seem to be spinning the truth as you see it so that rules out the rest of the Downworlders. What are you?"

"Human," Maura replied, taking a sip of her drink, the one Jane had ordered for her ages ago. It was delicious and perfect for her, unlike the beverage Dennis had insisted her get for her, which remained only half touched at the side of the table. He didn't seem to notice her distaste for it, but rather filed it under it needs to be appreciated slowly, given the way he didn't seem to be the least bit offended.

She drew the conversation back to the topic of her curiousity. "So no one knows what exactly he is then?"

Dennis shook his head. "Nah, everything's just conspiracy theories really."

"He could be human?"

Dennis laughed. "Doubt it. Old bugger's been around longer than I can remember and I've been around for quite a while myself."

Trying not to sound too curious, and ensuring she wouldn't offend, she asked, "Would you mind telling me exactly how old that would be?"

"Oh about two hundred and thirteen. There were a couple of really drunk years where I don't remember much, so it's not as precise as you'd probably like." He eyed her carefully. "Is this going to be a problem for the future of our courtship?"

Maura blushed heavily and took a drink to buy her time, pointedly ignoring Frost's vague vomiting mimes across the table. "Not at all," Maura assured him.

He beamed. "Excellent. Care to dance?"

They took their leave of Frost, who sent them off with a quick wave of his hand. He wiled away the time inspecting the other bar patrons, but again, no one seemed different or off. No vampires with fresh blood red eyes. It was ridiculous. The culprit had to be here somewhere.

Some time later, they wandered back to the table and while Dennis was saying goodbye to some of his bar friends, Maura explained that Dennis was a budding artist, and he had some pieces he'd love to show her back at his place. She slipped a piece of paper with the address onto the table in front of Frost and said she'd return to the Institute as soon as she'd seen the pieces.

Frost scoffed and said, "Sure. Yeah, whatever you say, Maura."

Maura was perplexed by his tone, but Dennis was back and was offering her his arm so she didn't ask what he meant by that. She just left him playing with the edges of the note paper, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Jane went straight to the table she'd vacated earlier and noted with surprise that only Frost was sitting there. She sat down heavily and automatically started scanning the crowd for the familiar head of blonde hair.

"She's not here, Jane." Frost informed her.

"Where is she?" Jane demanded.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "She left with Dennis. He wanted to show her some art he was doing or something."

Her face fell first, but then she panicked. "What kind of art, Frost?"

He shrugged, bewildered as to why that would matter. "Never said."

She kicked him under the table, "Please, please tell me you have an address for that fucker!" He shoved a wrinkled paper at her. "Let's go, Frost!"

He rushed after her as she darted from the bar, tossing money behind him as he went. "Where are we going? What's going on?"

"Keys, now!" She instructed, ignoring his inquiries. He tossed them to her and they moved quickly, jumping and flying from the parking lot.

"Jane, tell me what the fuck is going on!"

"He's the one, Frost! He's the one we're after! He hides his victims in statues because he's an artist! That must be how he manages to lure all his victims away, he persuades them with an art viewing, all private-like, and they just fall for it! Maura included!"

Her foot pressed down further on the pedal, causing them to fly down the streets of Boston to the apartment building on the paper. She came to a bumpy stop outside the place and sprinted up the steps, Frost hot behind her. She almost wiped out on the stairs from her high heels, but recovered her balance just in time.


	19. Days 27, 28, & 29

Her foot pressed down further on the pedal, causing them to fly down the streets of Boston to the apartment building on the paper. She came to a bumpy stop outside the place and sprinted up the steps, Frost hot behind her. She almost wiped out on the stairs from her high heels, but recovered her balance just in time.

She didn't even pause as they came upon the right door, just rammed right into it with her shoulder, jarring the joint but managing to bust through, drawing forth her dagger as the door splintered around her.

Maura was wrapped in Dennis' embrace and they were standing in front of an open elevator shaft. At first glance it may have looked sweet and romantic, but then Jane registered the terror in her eyes and the glint of his teeth near her throat and it seemed like the entire world stopped for Jane.

Dennis smirked and lowered his head and Jane reacted without another thought. The dagger flew from her fingers and buried itself in his shoulder, knocking him back and allowing Maura time to dash away from him.

"Jane, here!" Frost hollered, and when she turned back to spare him a glance, her hand automatically came up to catch the sword he hefted at her. Dennis was rocking on the edge of the open elevator, fighting for balance when Jane caught up to him and slashed him through the throat, both his head and his body falling to the depths below to land with dull thunks.

Maura dove at Jane, hugging her as hard as she could and sobbing into the brunette's shoulder. Jane dropped the seraph blade and wrapped her arms around the terrified blonde while Frost stepped forward cautiously to pick it up and put it away.

It took a few moments to calm Maura down enough to leave, but when they did, Jane handed the keys over to Frost and climbed into the backseat with Maura. The doctor wouldn't let go, but Jane didn't mind.

Frost's phone rang as he drove and he answered it; the doctor was too out of it to reprimand him for talking and driving at the same time.

"Frost." A pause. "Shit." And then, "I'll tell them. We're on our way back now."

"What happened, Frost?" Jane asked quietly, rubbing circles on Maura's back.

"It can wait until we're back." Frost said grimly, all of a sudden intensely focused on the road.

"Now." Jane insisted, hissing the word darkly. Frost sighed.

"He's gone. Hoyt escaped prison in Idris and now he could be anywhere. No one knows how, no one knows where he's gone, all they know it three guards were found dead about an hour ago."

Jane's entire body tensed and froze. "Step on it, Frost. We need to get her out of the open. Fast."

The car noticeably increased speed, and with a glance Jane noticed the needle ticking up toward ninety five miles per hour. "Faster." She said again and watched as it neared one hundred and ten.

"It's a good thing you have such faith in my driving capabilities or we'd have crashed by now."

Jane couldn't find it within herself to laugh at his poor joke, his desperate attempt at adding levity to a situation which was only growing more grave by the second.

"Are they doing anything about it yet? Do they have a plan?"

Frost shook his head. "No. First priority is getting you under lock and key. Then we'll work out a strategy and I swear to fucking God, the bastard isn't going to get the chance to escape again. I'll kill him before we take him into custody again," Frost vowed, knuckles whitening against the steering wheel and voice turning deadly.

"He won't be found unless he wants to be, we know that already. And the only way he's going to want to be found is if I'm the one out there searching around for him. You guys won't be keeping me under lock and key; not if we want to end this. And we will end this," she vowed, gripping Maura more tightly.

"No, Jane, don't go searching for him. You barely managed to escape from him last time," Maura pleaded quietly, sobs colouring her words.

"Shh, Maur. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." Jane instructed just as Frost pulled into a space at the Institute.

They got out of the car and hurried to the door, throwing it open and storming inside, heading straight for the kitchen.

"Information. Spill. Now." Were the three words that left Jane's lips as soon as they were in through the doorway.

Cavanaugh, Korsak, and Angela spoke over each other trying to explain the situation. Jane gave an exasperated sigh and the three tried again, this time gesturing for Korsak to give them the low down.

Giovanni, Frankie, Tessa, and Jem burst through the door before they could begin, all of them still in all of their outerwear, weapons still weighing down their utility belts.

"Good. I only have to explain this once. Hoyt escaped from the maximum security prison cell we had him held in in Idris. Three guards are dead. He got the first one when they brought him food, breaking his arm through the hole in the door and snatching his keys before escaping and getting rid of the other two.

"No one knows where he is, but given his history we expect him to be here in the city, lurking and waiting to try and get to Jane again. Obviously, we're not going to let that happen, so-"

"Yes you are," Jane interjected, cutting Korsak off effectively. Dead silence followed the statement for a second, and then all hell broke loose as everyone tried to speak at the same time.

After a few moments, Jane's head began to hurt at all the ruckus. "OI! Alright, shut up the lot of you and let me explain, okay?" She rubbed her temples to buy her a moment to sort out her thoughts. "As I explained to Frost in the car, he wants me, he'll be coming after me. He doesn't want anyone else. He won't appear for anyone else. The fucker will lie low until he can get me alone and then he'll strike."

She shook her head. "That's the only way we'll get a shot at taking this guy down. We have to take the chance. We can be sneaky about it; ambush him as he ambushes me if we can, but if you keep me locked up in here to keep me safe, we'll never catch him."

"I am not going through all of that crap again!" Angela declared, throwing her arms in the air. "No way, I'm not having it."

Jane looked her mother in the eye and said, "I wasn't asking for permission. I'm doing it my way. Whether or not you guys choose to assist me will be up to you."

Frost assented first, followed quickly by the rest of the younger generation. Tessa and Jem stood off to the side, but nodded when Jane's inquisitive gaze landed upon them. Korsak silently agreed as well, whereas Cavanaugh admitted defeat with an exasperated sigh.

Mama Rizzoli was still shaking her head in denial.

"You're not going to help me, Ma?" Jane asked in a small voice.

Angela broke. "Oh baby, of course I will," she sniffled.

The door opened again, "You can count me in, too, sis." Tommy declared as he stepped into the room, Lydia sneaking in behind him.

"And us." Members from her old guard swarmed into the place as well, making the room seem smaller than it had in ages.

"Don't forget me, Vanilla!" Rondo boomed as he bounded in. He gave her a hug and winked, "I got your back, you fine slice of-"

Jane's hard glare stopped him short.

"Alright," Jane said, brain whirring in an attempt to come up with a plan while she had the floor.

"You're not going by yourself." Maura said firmly.

"Yes I am, otherwise this entire thing isn't going to-"

Maura silenced her with a harsh look. "He's taken me before, too. I'll go with you." She looked around at the audience. "If we can get a map and set up a route to travel along, we can have people hiding out along the way, watching out for him. Jane and I go along until he shows himself and then we finish him."

"Sounds sketchy at best, Maura," Frankie said hesitantly.

"Do you have a better plan?" Jane asked. He shook his head. "Exactly. I like it. We should start now."

"No, Jane, you need to rest and eat before we go out there." Maura instructed in a no nonsense voice. Jane looked imploringly at her, but the blonde refused to budge on her stance. "Go," she ordered and watched Jane sulk away. The door swung shut behind her.

"You have got to teach me how you do that," Giovanni stated, slack jawed and amazed.

"Me too," Frankie agreed.

Maura rolled her eyes. "Can you guys come up with a suitable route? I don't want to leave her alone. She may do something stupid."

They said they'd take care of it and after letting Angela thrust a plate of food into her hands, she trudged upstairs, heading straight for Jane's room.

The brunette was surprisingly still in the Institute, sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing her palms together anxiously.

"I half thought to look in my room first, make sure you weren't escaping down the side of the building again." Maura said, setting the food on the bedside table and sitting down beside Jane.

"Can't say I didn't think about it." Jane answered gruffly. She sighed loudly. "God, I just go from one homicidal maniac after my blood to another today, don't I?"

Maura looked at her, alarmed. "Who else has tried to kill you?!"

Shifting guiltily, Jane muttered, "Casey. But don't worry about it. I dealt with him before we found you."

It was Maura's turn to wrap Jane into a hug. "I'm sorry you've gone through so much today, Jane. I don't know what came over me, but I fell apart and it was the scariest thing in my life."

Jane nodded against Maura's neck. "It's okay. It's a dangerous life. You don't have to stay."

Maura stiffened against Jane. "I'm not leaving you."

Jane exhaled a worried breath she hadn't been aware of keeping in. "If we survive this, you can move in permanently if you want. Become another integral part of our quilted team."

Maura smiled. "I'd love to."

"It's settled then. I'll ask you again when we're through this and if you're still sure, you can take the oath."

"There's an oath?" Maura asked.

"Yeah," Jane shrugged. "As Shadowhunters, we're allowed to keep people, colleagues here with us at the Institute so long as they go through with an oath, binding themselves to the work we do; it's not unlike the ceremony we go through before we become full fledged Shadowhunters."

"Is it binding?"

Jane nodded. "Pretty much. You can leave if you leave with a Shadowhunter, or if you vow never to return, never to contact us again, and never to reveal our world to the mundanes. It's serious, though, Maur. The people before you who took the oath, well, most of them live to regret it."

"You've had other people like that?"

Jane shook her head. "Not really. We may have had one when we first arrived here from Idris, but we've never taken one on ourselves… talked to a bunch of ones who took it though. They said that most days, they wished they'd stayed in the mundane world. Can't say I blame them. As you've noticed, you see a lot of fucked up shit in this place."

"Language," Maura corrected absently, mind clearly engaged elsewhere.

They hugged it out for a while longer, before collapsing onto Jane's bed and falling asleep. Maura's arms were still wrapped around Jane.

"Alright, let's get all of the troops in here, then, so we can see how many we're dealing with." Cavanaugh ordered, while the trio of Gio, Frankie, and Frost got out a map and started planning possible routes. Werewolves, faeries, and a couple of vampires stalked inside, the wolves and the bloodsuckers staying on opposite ends of the crowd.

"Teams of two! Preferably one Shadowhunter and one Downworlder to a team." Cavanaugh instructed.

"We going to be using the Alliance rune again?" Joey Grant asked, speaking for the werewolves.

"No, we don't need to share powers, I just want to balance out the teams so that Hoyt has to work harder to bring us down."

The assembly shuffled around, locking into pairs easily. There were a couple of extra Downworlders at the end, even after three stepped off to the side to be paired with the younger Shadowhunters once they'd concocted a plan.

After realising how many pairs they had, they edited their route to accommodate their numbers. Then everyone armed themselves, and Angela handed out food to sate the crowd for the coming vigil.

Frankie went to get Jane and Maura. He'd planned on waking Jane first, knocking softly on the door before entering cautiously. _Shit_. He thought as he caught sight of the two of them tangled up together on top of the covers, limbs everywhere, completely out of it.

"Hey, Frankie!" Giovanni whispered harshly from the doorway before peering in. 'What – oh shit man, are they together?!"

"Shut up, Giovanni!" Frankie said harshly in a low voice.

Giovanni looked back and forth between the sleeping people and his partner. "But they're so cute!" he whined, gesturing madly at the cuteness in front of them.

Frankie silenced him with a glare. "Get out of here, Gio, what're you even doing here?"

Gio shrugged. "Well, I was gonna ask you what your preference was. Your Ma made eggplant parmesan and penne carbonara and I was going to save you a plate."

"Oh." Frankie turned sheepish. "Right, thanks man. Parmesan, all the way."

"I swear to God if that is the voice of my younger brother and his parabatai lurking by my bed, neither of you will be eating anything for the next year and a half, let alone Ma's eggplant parmesan." Jane threatened, voice thick with sleep, from the bed.

The two men turned to each other, rightly alarmed for their future selves. "Shit." They said in unison and turned tail quickly, sprinting to rejoin the masses downstairs. There was safety in numbers, after all.

Jane sighed and rolled over onto her back as Maura stirred beside her. "Guess that means it's show time," Jane murmured softly, and Maura kind of mewled in response.

"I suppose so," Maura offered sleepily as she wiped the residue from her eyes.

Jane ran her hand through Maura's hair, like she was petting a kitten. "Come on, let's go catch the bad guy," she said, and slipped from the bed.

They changed, and with Jane's help, they were both armed for anything. When they rejoined the throng of people downstairs, they were immediately guided into the kitchen, and then pressed forward until they came face to face with Angela. The woman simply stared at them both for about a minute before sighing and handing them each a plate, fully loaded with food.

"You'll need your energy." Was all she said, and then she stroked her daughter's cheek with one hand, and squeezed Maura's hand in the other before putting on her brave face and letting them walk away.

They ate quickly, in a companionable silence, actively avoiding all the curious stares from their fellow comrades in battle.

"It'll be alright," Jane whispered reassuringly at one point, noting the worry lines emerging on Maura's forehead. The blonde had simply nodded anxiously and continued picking at the food.

Another couple of minutes and they declared they were done by taking their plates to the sink and nodding at Cavanaugh and Korsak. Together, with the help of Frost, Frankie, and Giovanni, they took the ladies through the plan. Patiently, they answered the many questions Maura seemed to have until finally Jane rolled her eyes and said that they were going to leave now.

They gave the rest of their help fifteen minutes to get into position, and then they left side by side through the front door. They followed the route to the letter, every turn every alleyway, without fail. They couldn't see their protective details on the outskirts of their vision, but they had faith that people were watching over them.

The circuit took about forty five minutes at a slightly more brisk pace than the usual Bostonian was capable of.

The ladies went around it five times. Five times without pause, without interruption. Nothing.

They finally called it quits after that last walk around, and when they all regrouped back in the kitchen, Maura got an earful of I told you so's from passing people. She brushed it off easily, but Jane could tell it still stung.

"Hey, guys, knock it off. It was a sound plan and I didn't hear any of you offer up an alternative option. Besides, maybe he just hasn't arrived back in town yet. We don't know how he's traveling; frankly, we don't know a whole hell of a lot about this guy. So let's keep it civil and polite and not make enemies amongst our allies, shall we?"

Jane's little speech had the desired effect, and everyone kept pretty well away from them for the remainder of the evening.

They turned into bed early, having only received a few hours of shut eye previously. Jane had taken a moment away from Maura to explain to Frankie that spying upon the two of them while they were sleeping was beyond creepy and that should it ever happen again, he'd never get to have a kid.

She closed the door in his face.

Frankie took the threat at its face value because, having spent almost the past four hours in close quarters with a lovely, brilliant werewolf named Riley, he'd like to keep that particular future option available.

He returned downstairs, intent to simply bid everyone goodnight and hit the hay himself, except when he got down there, he noticed Frost chatting with Riley. That smooth son of a bitch had Riley laughing like she didn't have a care in the world.

Wary, he approached them, "Hey."

Riley was the first to respond to him, "Oh hey, Frankie, Frost here was just telling me a story about the four of you as young wannabe Shadowhunters." She laughed again. "So cute."

He blushed. "Oh was he? How nice of him." He turned to Frost, glaring heatedly, "Shouldn't you be going to sleep? I know you've had a hell of a past few days."

Frost seemed to consider it for a moment before grinning widely. "You know, I thought about it, but I'd hate to leave poor Riley here all alone," he said.

Riley blushed. "Don't you worry about me. I was going to head to bed soon myself." She scrutinised their faces for a moment. "How about we all just turn in for the night right now? Then no one's left out and we're all well rested for whatever the morning brings?"

It was a grand suggestion, and after each of the men put forth a half-hearted attempt to insist, they separated for the night. Riley going off to sleep somewhere, completely oblivious, while Frost and Frankie each tried to think of ways to out shine the other.

**CHAPTER TEN**

She was cold when she awoke. Before Maura had come into her life, if she'd slept at all, she'd always woken up freezing cold. But, since the blonde had entered her life and, in time, come to practically call Jane's bed her own, the brunette hadn't had cause to wake up shivering.

She stretched out, waiting to come into contact with Maura's warm skin, except she didn't come across anything. Her eyes flew open, and she sprang up from the bed to confirm it.

_She was gone._

She scoured the room, only to find a single piece of paper.

_Oh Janie, how lovely to see you again._

_I admit, it was rather difficult to simply watch you lying there,_

_to smell the lavender without the fear, and leave you,_

_but your 'friend' and I have such plans for you._

_You know she's gone._

_You know I have her._

_42.6361_

_71.9083_

_You'll figure out where I am soon enough._

_And Janie, I hope when you get here_

_You're ready to play._

_My game. My way._

_Remember. You must be alone._

_After all, it's no fun to watch your friends and family die for you, is it?_

Panic manifested in her heart. She balled the note up in her fist, simmering in her rage. It was time. It was time to finally kill the bastard. Or die getting Maura free in the attempt. She was out of other options, out of other roads to go down.

She got out her laptop and typed the numbers into Google. One of the first results indicated that they were coordinates, and that they led straight to a town in northern Massachusetts called Ashburnham. From what the internet could tell her, it was fairly well known for its abandoned wilderness.

The house would be on high alert and she'd have to steal a car to get there. She'd also need a way into the weapons vault to arm herself, regardless of the fact that Hoyt would no doubt just make her strip them all off when she came face to face with the bastard.

Her blood boiled in her veins.

She threw caution to the wind and simply stormed into the weaponry. _How the hell did he get inside the Institute, let alone my room? How didn't I notice?_ There were so many questions running through Jane's mind as she strapped on her gear. So many questions, and no where near enough answers for them all.

With her destination so far out of town, she knew that if she hurried she could get there not too long after him. That, and the sun wasn't rising as she'd expected, but sinking. It was sunset.

Preparing for the worst, she hid a few weapons underneath her layers of clothing, including a small knife in her bra and a mini explosive which she hooked onto the band of her underwear.

The Institute was eerily quiet as she slipped down the stairs. Not everyone could be asleep; that was impossible. Someone was always awake, someone was always keeping watch.

Curious and concerned, she entered the kitchen only to find a few people asleep at the tables. One man's face was buried half in his mashed potatoes.

All of a sudden, clear understanding dawned on her: they'd been drugged. She seethed with vicious anger at the thought that he'd gotten in here twice. Once to drug them and once to kidnap Maura. They'd failed her, as all Shadowhunters eventually fail the faithful.

The only upside, if there was one, was that everyone still seemed to out of it to hinder her escape. With any luck, no one would know she was missing. No one would be looking for her with any haste. She felt better about stealing one of the Insitute's vehicles for her rescue mission. She slipped both sets of keys to the car in her pocket. She'd leave one in the car in case Maura got the chance to escape without her. She'd have the other on her person so Hoyt could take it and 'ensure' that they had no means of escape should they wiggle free.

She left and jumped straight into the car, no longer worried at all by the sound of the engine starting.

As such, she wasn't checking to make sure no one noticed her departure. If she had, maybe she'd have noticed the light on in a room on the second floor, a lonely silhouette against the glass of the window, curiously watching her leave.

She sped along the Massachusetts 2 highway, through Somerville, Concord, Acton, and past Harvard before she had to stop for gas. It didn't take long to cross the rest of the distance through Leominster and up past Fitchburg before finally getting to Ashburnham.

It took an hour and a half to get there, and then another half an hour, driving around the small town before finding something worth investigating on foot.

The night was damp and lacking in stars. Using only the faint glimmer of the moon coming in through the dense grove of trees, she approached the abandoned cabin with caution. It was rundown and looked like a chaotic mess; so it was just the type of place he'd pick to hide out in for a while.

Using every scrap of training she'd been given, she stalked through the brush to the house.

A few hundred yards from the house, she located a car covered in a camouflage tarp and driven into a thick tangle of branches and leaves. The hood was slightly warm to the touch, even with the plastic covering, and that only cemented her theory: he was here.

She felt a trickle of anticipatory dread slide down her spine. This would be the night of her revenge, and she would stop at nothing to achieve her ends. She drew her twin blades from the scabbards strapped across her back and whispered their names to the lonely wind.

Her breathing regulated as she brought forth every ounce of her discipline, and then she sprang forward lightly, body tensed to face her past, her present, and her future.

The house was quiet as she entered, but almost like another sense, she could feel his slimy presence in the air.

Out of nowhere, two thugs appeared at her back, and grasped her arms, twisting them in such a way as to ensure her swords fell to the rotten floorboards.

"Jane! So nice of you to join our little party," Hoyt called, although she couldn't see him yet. "I was just telling these lovely gentlemen that it's only polite to remove a lady's coat and excessive weaponry before she be brought into the main parlour. Did they listen?"

She could hear the unadulterated glee in his voice and it infuriated her. "Where is she?" she snarled, still fighting against the hard grips on her shoulders and forearms.

"Now, now, Janie. Where would all the fun go if I just told you so that you could half-wittedly attempt to rescue her and in the process force me to kill both of you prematurely?" He shook his head at her lack of understanding. "How am I to get to know the two of you better if you're both dead?"

He came into view then, appearing from behind a supporting wall of the house. He took one look at her and nodded at the men holding her. They released her, but had picked her own blades up off the ground and were pointing the tips at her.

"Strip." Hoyt commanded, voice low and hush. She shuddered.

"No."

"You can put your damn clothes right back on afterward, but I know you, Janie. You have weapons in those folds of fabric. Strip. Now."

She didn't move.

He sighed in agitation. "Fine!" He roared. He motioned for one man to do something and he disappeared. When he came back, he had a struggling bundle in his arms.

Hoyt stared Jane down. "If you don't, I will take your own Goddamned knife to your pretty little girlfriend's neck and we'll see how quickly you comply with me, then!" He snarled, picking the small dagger up off the ground and moving briskly towards Maura.

"STOP!" She shouted desperately. He halted his movements as Jane started shucking her shirt and trousers, tossing away the dagger and small explosive. If Maura had simply been tied up alone in a corner, she could've used that timing to use those two last resort weapons, but she just couldn't risk Maura being so close to ground zero.

"Let her go, Hoyt, you don't need her for anything. You have me," Jane said, hating herself for the breaks in her voice.

He grinned at the pain soaking her words. "No. The quickest way to get your compliance is to threaten the girl here. You don't care about self-preservation, you stupid girl, but you care very much about her." His eyes lit up in malice. "Besides, it's obvious that the best way to torture you, is actually to torture her."

He spoke to his goons, "Restrain her!" And again, Jane's arms were immobilised behind her back. One of them kicked the back of her knee, forcing her down to the ground.

"What shall we do to the good doctor first, Janie?" Hoyt asked rhetorically. It made her sick to think about. "You know I don't like to kill creatures with their own race's weapons, but how about I torture Maura with some good old fashioned human ingenuity?" He cackled at the looks of terror mirrored on both women's faces.

He wandered over to a table covered in a random collection of items. He browsed through it before selecting a block-like thing. "Why don't I paralyse her, first, Janie? Humanity has this wonderful little device, it sends electricity through a person's body, rendering their synapses useless. Great little thing. It'll mean I can untie the doc while I have fun with her."

He pointed it at her and pressed a button, delighting in the tortured way Jane shrieked, "No!" at the top of her lungs. It was dark enough that Jane could practically see the energy exploding down the lines attaching the machine to Maura's chest, and she fought hard against her binders as Maura's body shook with the shock.

"LET HER GO! DAMN YOU HOYT!"

"Ah, Janie," he smiled reverently, leaning down to push an errant lock of hair back behind Maura's ear. "Hit the lights," he instructed and one of the men left Jane's side to flick the switch.


	20. Day 30 & This is the End

"Now, before you think I'm a terrible person, Janie-"

"Too late," she snorted derisively. His eyes flashed briefly and then smouldered, the fury hidden behind the depths of his pupils.

"I won't kill your friend. She'll get to live, of that you can be assured." He patted Maura on the knee. "You see, before I realised what I was; before I realised my power and my purpose for this immortal life I lead, I killed a lot of humans. They called me a serial killer, and oh I was superb at it, Janie; the best. They hated to admire me for my skill at such a dark art, but they couldn't help themselves."

His monologue took a small respite as he seemed to indulge in his memories. "I used to hunt couples back in those days. I was young and naïve, didn't know that other, better prey existed. I'd rape the wives of countless men while they watched, helpless and crying and then I'd kill them and let the wives live."

He shook his head smiling. "It was a genius modus operandi, Jane. Perfect, even. I was never caught. No one had ever caught me at anything until you came along. I was expecting you to get close; it's why I did all that research on you, but I never truly expected you to come all the way and find me. I admit, I was impressed. You showed such promise; the ultimate opposition in our little game of chess." He smiled, showing off his pointy teeth.

"Though perhaps I was wrong. You seem to have given up and succumbed to your fate." He tsked. "You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to be Jane Rizzoli, fighter to the nth degree. Never give up. It was your ferocity that made me like you, I think. But where has it gone?"

He walked over to Jane, inspecting her. "Ah, I know." He jabbed his head in Maura's direction. "Shock her again. She should be regaining some feeling and movement in her extremities by now."

"Don't!" Jane begged. "Don't hurt her, please. Hurt me instead."

Hoyt inhaled deeply. "It's so refreshing to hear you beg, Janie, sweetheart. But it's not enough."

Maura's body rocked again with the new shock.

"Now, shall I get onto business? Let you watch me defile her, own her, _break_ her? The woman you're in love with is going to have me, and then both of my men buried within her, Janie, and there isn't one Goddamned thing you can do about it." He smirked. "How does that feel, Janie? Knowing you're helpless? How does it feel knowing that, despite everything you've done, all the things you've accomplished in your life, and all the lives you've saved from being torn apart, you couldn't save the one that matters most to you?"

"TELL ME HOW IT FEELS!" He roared, getting right up into her face.

"I'm warning you Hoyt, I swear to God with all the angels as my witness that if you don't let her go, you will all three of you be sorry," Jane vowed, voice low and dark; haunting.

"There we go!" Hoyt cried. "That's the Jane we know and love!" He picked a scalpel up off of the table and leaned towards Maura. "Shall we see, dear doctor, how our Janie reacts to the sight of your blood on my fingers?" He asked, menacing smile in place. "I shall take your silence as agreement."

He drew the sharp blade across the skin of Maura's throat and Jane watched in horror as blood emerged instantaneously from the wound.

"Stop it Hoyt! Stop it, you son of a bitch!" She struggled against the men holding her captive.

Hoyt turned to her, his expression the perfect picture of delight. "If that's your reaction to a tiny spot of blood, I wonder how you'll do when we start to strip her. When she's lying there, naked and waiting, helpless just as you're helpless. How long will it take to break you, Janie?" He sighed loftily. "Now, isn't that the question… you see, I've spent the majority of my life devoted to ascertaining the breaking points in all of us. I have studied and experimented thousands of times, I have hundreds of notebooks filled with observations and information, times and dates. They have all been different and yet the same. A pattern started to emerge amongst the races. Faeries and warlocks were always the hardiest. Humans, those pathetic excuses for life literally took no time at all. The rest of them were scattered in between.

"So believe me when I say this Janie: You are unique. And it will be my greatest pleasure, I assure you, to break you so entirely that you won't want to live anymore." He inhaled deeply, smiling as though the sun shone from his very face; like he was God or something. "And then I, being a merciful lord, a powerful being, will solemnly oblige."

"Terence!" He called loudly. Jane felt the arms at her left go slack. "Undress her!" Hoyt commanded and the henchman quickly did as he was instructed to. Jane saw her opportunity and she lunged for it, driving her elbow into the groin of the man holding her and charging forward, delivering a quick jab to Terence's neck. He went down without a fight, and the man she'd hit in the family jewels was still writhing upon the floor in agony.

To Jane's utter dismay, Hoyt didn't seem the least concerned that she'd escaped her captors. In fact, he even seemed a little disappointed.

"Let her go," Jane demanded, squaring off against the warlock.

"I'm magical, Jane, you can't win." Hoyt informed her. "I admit, I'd rather hoped you would've broken out before now, but alas."

Jane eyed her small explosive on the ground, about a foot in front of her now. Narrowing her eyes at Hoyt in concentration, she stepped forward brusquely and kicked it square at his chest.

It erupted in black smoke on contact, little bits of shrapnel flying in different directions. A few pieces cut across Jane's cheeks, and she swore she saw a few cut Maura as well, but she wouldn't let herself think and dwell on that. A couple of little cuts were a far better alternative to what Hoyt had had in mind.

He seethed with anger, eyes burning with his determination and hatred. "You'll pay for that, Janie," he promised, and raised his hands menacingly. He mumbled something Jane vaguely recognised as Enochian, the language of the angels, and his face turned victorious as the last syllable left his lips.

Except nothing happened.

"Put a damper on your powers!" Jane informed him. "You really should hide that mixture from people who could use it against you," she advised, some of her badass swagger returning to her. Quickly, she picked up the taser from the floor and spun, shocking the man who'd attempted to sneak up behind her and incapacitating him for a while. She let it drop as it recharged, hoping against hope that if she did this right, she could shock him again.

He howled with frustration and indignation, choosing instead to charge her with his medical blades.

This was far more Jane's speed; good old hand to hand combat. But if she'd assumed that simply because he was a warlock he would have no skills in that regard, she was sorely mistaken. It was like facing three opponents in one. He had such incredible speed and strength, it took all of the power her Marks gave her and an unrelenting amount of sheer will power to keep matching him strike for strike.

His scalpel managed to clip her a few times as they parried and sparred back and forth, moving along across the floor. They ended up getting closer to his table of torture implements, where the rest of her weapons were stored. She exerted as much energy as she could and gave him a hard kick to the gut, blindly reaching for one of her seraph blades.

"CASSIEL!" She cried, flinging the sword in front of her to block Hoyt's next attack. It glowed at the sound of its name and Jane felt more confident that she could win.

Until, that is, Hoyt bent quickly and retrieved her other blade. He could not invoke the runes to make the sword glow with angelic power, but he could still use it as a tool.

They duelled, crossing great lengths of the house's main floor as Jane did her utmost to keep their battle away from Maura's prone body.

Finally, the technically perfect man made a fatal error and Jane managed to slash him in the side, causing him to fall to the floor and drop his weapon. She stepped onto his ankles roughly, feeling a queer tingle of pleasantness at the sounds of the bones and joints breaking; his squeals of agony.

"Maybe I've underestimated you," he said through gritted teeth between outbursts of pain.

"Maybe," Jane conceded, as she stepped next onto his wrists, though she didn't break them. "Maybe you're just not as great as you seemed to think," she offered.

She brought her seraph blade down strongly, tip first and pierced him through the heart. Then she cut his head off because of course he had to be a fucking immortal son of a bitch to boot.

The door crashed open as someone bolted through. "Jane?!" Frost called, shaking off the impact and looking around. "Oh shit, there you are, are you alright?"

Shocked, Jane could only ask, "How'd you find us?"

Frost turned, shocked. "Is Maura here, too?"

Jane nodded and walked over to the doctor. She took the woman into her arms and carried her out of the house, Frost following close behind.

"Let's all just take one car. I don't want to let either of you out of my sight. We can send someone for the other car." Frost said, opening the back doors and helping Jane get settled.

"Really, how'd you find us?" Jane asked softly. Maura's eyes were closed, and Jane couldn't pull her gaze from the doctor's face. She looked so peaceful, almost like she was sleeping. Except Jane was sure she'd merely passed out from the electricity.

"Tommy. He saw you leave, alone, earlier. He would've come himself but Lydia was going into labour and he's out of practice. You haven't trained him up again. I was the first one to get out of the funk of whatever it was, man, so I came running for you." Jane glanced up to meet his eyes in the rear view mirror. "It's what partners do."

"Thanks, Frost. Thank you."

He watched as her eyes started to flicker, like she was fighting off sleep. If anything could out big bad Rizzoli to sleep, it was the lulling motion of a car ride after an adrenaline spiking fight.

"I've got you, Jane. No one's coming after you."

Her eyes closed and she drifted off.

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

They were locked in the infirmary for two days. Maura was let go after day one, but she didn't want to leave Jane's side. They were inseparable; more so than they had been before. Even after they were both released, they both practically moved into Jane's room together.

Nightmares were prevalent every night. Sometimes it was one or the other, but every once in a while it was both of them at the same time, and they'd wake shaking and sweating, automatically wrapping each other up in their arms to comfort as they took comfort.

They never told anyone else about their night terrors, but Maura felt certain that the rest of the household already knew that sometimes they simply laid awake at night and chatted.

It was two weeks later, and Institute life had returned to what was routinely deemed normal. They went out on the occasional night patrol, but mostly they stayed back, training and reading up on the demons they sought to exterminate.

They worked slowly at being comfortable at spending time apart from each other, Maura often going off with Giovanni while Jane was hauled away by Frost and Frankie. At first it was unbearable, and after a mere couple of minutes they were running back to each other and embracing strongly.

But with time and practice, two minutes turned to five, five to twenty, twenty to an hour, and after a few weeks, they were almost back to normal. They chose not to spend their time apart, but they no longer _needed_ to be together to keep their sanity.

Towards the end of those couple of months, Frost informed Maura on the down low that Jane's birthday was rapidly approaching, but not to make too much of a deal about it. Truth was, Jane kind of hated her birthday, and didn't generally enjoy reminders about it.

Maura decided that, whether Jane liked it or not, she'd be getting a present regardless. She spent a good half hour on the floor of her room (which at this point, was really more just Maura's closet and Bass's room) chatting quietly with Bass about possible gift ideas.

That was when the idea struck her. She dashed out of the house the night before Jane's big day, and although it took a few hours to find the right one, she made her way home that evening with her prize.

The next morning, she snuck out of Jane's embrace in the early morning and retrieved the box from her room. She slipped back into bed, taking the lid half off and placing it on the bedside table. She brushed Jane's hair out of her face with one hand, and wrapped her other arm around the brunette's waist.

"Hey," Jane murmured, turning to face Maura with a smile on her face.

"Hi," Maura whispered back happily. She reached behind her for the box, slipping the lid back on. "Happy birthday!" She exclaimed cheerfully, presenting the box and ignoring the frown on Jane's face.

"Maura, no, I don't want anything for my birthday and you aren't even supposed to know it's today!" She glared playfully at the blonde. "Who told you?" She paused, thoughtfully. "It was TJ, wasn't it? My little nephew traitor. He told you with his mind, didn't he? Everyone else knows better!"

"Jane! You know that's impossible! He's only a couple of months old!" She shook her head indulgently. "Here. Open it."

She could see Jane getting ready to fight it. "Please? For me?"

Clear victory for Maura Isles.

"Alright, alright, give me the box," Jane sighed, holding her hand out.

She plucked the lid off and her lips formed an 'O'.

"It's your very own geochelone sulcata!" Maura informed her excitedly. "He doesn't take much care and interacting with him is very easy. He can live in my room with Bass and you can play with him all the time; Bass too! You'll be able to fully see their awe-inspiring potential to be fantastic pets!"

Not knowing what to say, Jane stuttered, "Y-yeah, Maura, it'll be great."

Maura nodded emphatically. "What're you going to name him?"

"I have to name him now?" Jane stalled, mind whirring in an attempt to scramble for a decent name.

Maura smiled widely. "Yes!"

"Well he's pretty cute, I guess…"

"I would suggest Watson, so he can be your perfect complement to your Sherlock, madame detective."

Jane snapped her fingers. "You're brilliant Maura! I present to you, Baby Bass Watson!"

"Aww, you named him after Bass, too? Jane that's so sweet!" And then without even thinking about it, she kissed Jane fully on the lips.

Shocked, they both abruptly pulled away. Jane set Baby Bass down on the bed beside them and whispered, "Best birthday ever," before going back for another kiss.


End file.
